Electric Rain Turquoise

From the Greek elektron, amber — the substance whose static-electric properties were observed by Thales of Miletus. Used as a color modifier since the late nineteenth century after electric light made certain saturated colors feel attention-demanding. Electric blue, electric pink: the implication is hot luminance combined with optical impact. Sits at the bright-bucket extreme.

Old English regn, rain-or-shower. As a color modifier, rain implies a rain-shower-and-wet-and-Atlantic-front quality, the visual register of Atlantic-front-rain-and-monsoon-rain hand-rain-shower-and-wet-and-Atlantic-front Atlantic-front-rain-and-monsoon-rain-and-Lake-District-deluge rain-and-rain-shower-and-wet surfaces under Atlantic-front-rain-and-monsoon-rain-and-Lake-District-deluge Cumbrian-fells-and-Borrowdale-and-Snowdonia Atlantic-rain-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to sleet and flurry 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.