Flamboyant Fluff Turquoise

French flamboyant, flaming — present-participle of flamboyer, derived from flambe (flame). As a color modifier, flamboyant implies a saturated-and-attention-grabbing-and-elaborate quality, the bright color of Late-Gothic-and-Rococo highly-decorative-architectural ornament. Sits at the bright-and-flamboyant end of the grid, parallel to showy and ostentatious in usage.

Imitative-onomatopoeic origin, attested c. 1790. As a color modifier, fluff implies a soft-puffed-and-airy quality, the visual register of cotton-and-down-and-wool-fluff hand-carded-and-puffed cotton-and-down-and-wool-fluff hand-carded-and-puffed-fluff surfaces under hand-carded-and-puffed cotton-and-down-and-wool-fluff working-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to down and fuzz in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.