Frank Zephyr Teal

From the Old French franc, free, sincere — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as direct and unhedged. Frank red, frank brown: moderate-to-high saturation combined with optical directness. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside direct and honest.

Greek ζέφυρος, gentle-west-wind. As a color modifier, zephyr implies a gentle-west-wind-and-Mediterranean-breeze quality, the visual register of Greek-Zephyrus-and-Botticelli-Primavera-zephyr hand-gentle-west-wind-and-Mediterranean-breeze Greek-Zephyrus-and-Botticelli-Primavera-zephyr-and-Hellenic-Anemoi zephyr-and-gentle-west-wind surfaces under Greek-Zephyrus-and-Botticelli-Primavera-zephyr-and-Hellenic-Anemoi Hellenic-Mediterranean-and-Florentine-spring gentle-Mediterranean-breeze-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to gust and mistral 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.