Earnest Prowl 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.

Middle English prollen, to-roam-and-search. As a color modifier, prowl implies a stalking-and-hunting-and-watchful quality, the visual register of panther-and-tiger-prowl hand-stalking-and-hunting-and-watchful panther-and-tiger-and-leopard prowled-and-stalking-and-hunting-and-watchful surfaces under panther-and-tiger-and-leopard jungle-and-savanna-and-night-forest big-cat-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to stalk and lurk 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.