Engraved Zenith Teal

Old French engraver, to dig in — past-participle of engrave. As a color modifier, engraved implies a clear-and-precisely-cut quality, the crisp color of Albrecht-Dürer-and-Hogarth hand-pulled engraving-print fine-line incised-image. Sits at the crisp-and-incised end of the grid, parallel to etched and inscribed in usage.

Arabic samt-al-ra's, path-overhead. As a color modifier, zenith implies an overhead-pointing-and-high-point quality, the visual register of celestial-sphere-and-overhead-Zenith hand-overhead-pointing-and-high-point celestial-sphere-and-overhead-and-Zenith-pole zenith-and-overhead-pointing-and-high-point surfaces under celestial-sphere-and-overhead-and-Zenith-pole astronomical-and-celestial-mechanics overhead-axis-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to nadir and axis in usage.

Anas crecca, the small dabbling duck whose male in breeding plumage sports a chestnut head crossed by a glossy green-blue stripe. The color refers to that stripe — the iridescent panel just behind the eye: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical depth of structural color rather than pigment. Cooler than cypress, warmer than cerulean, with the ornithological specificity of a color named for one feather of one bird.