Heavy Median Royal

Old English hefig, weighty — cognate with heave. Used as a color modifier since at least the seventeenth century to indicate weight in saturation as much as value: heavy with pigment, heavy-bodied. In the engine's adjective grid, heavy sits alongside deep and plush in the dark-and-saturated quadrant. Closer to a fabric description than a pure value word.

Latin Medi, Medes. As a color modifier, median implies an ancient-Iranian-and-Median-Empire quality, the visual register of Median-Empire-of-Ecbatana pre-Achaemenid Iranian-Median highland-kingdom hand-built fortress-and-temple surfaces under Median-Empire-of-Ecbatana pre-Achaemenid Iranian-Highland fortress light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to persia and achaemenid in usage.

The blue of European royal court dress and regalia from the late seventeenth century forward — the color of British peers' robes, French royal sashes, the lining of the crown-jewel cases. The color refers to a saturated, slightly violet-shifted blue with the matte finish of velvet or melton wool dyed to maximum intensity: deeper than cornflower, warmer than ultramarine, with the heraldic weight of a color reserved for monarchs and the official Crown.