Earnest Zest Forest

Old English eornost, seriousness, zeal. Used as a color modifier since the nineteenth century for hues that read as committed but unshowy — the working blues of denim, the deep greens of Quaker meetinghouses. Sits in the bold-and-quiet corner of the grid, slightly less luminous than resolute and slightly less institutional than imperial.

French zeste, citrus-peel-and-bright-tang. As a color modifier, zest implies a bright-citrus-peel-and-aromatic-oil quality, the visual register of Provençal-and-Sicilian-citrus-zest hand-bright-citrus-peel-and-aromatic-oil Provençal-and-Sicilian-citrus-zest-and-Mediterranean-bergamot zest-and-bright-citrus-peel surfaces under Provençal-and-Sicilian-citrus-zest-and-Mediterranean-bergamot Menton-and-Sicily-and-Calabria-citrus-grove citrus-grove-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to tang and bergamot in usage.

The dense canopy of a temperate or tropical woodland — oak, beech, pine, eucalyptus, mahogany — wherever leaves close above to filter the light below. Forest green refers to the average reflectance of a healthy mid-summer canopy seen from below: a saturated, slightly muted green with the matte finish of layered chlorophyll. Deeper than fern, cooler than olive, with the ecological weight of a word that has named every wooded biome on Earth.