Wholesome Luna Teal

An adjectival form of whole — used as a color modifier since the sixteenth century for hues that read as healthy and unadulterated. Wholesome cream, wholesome wheat: moderate saturation combined with the optical impression of a natural origin. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside genuine.

Latin luna, moon. As a color modifier, luna implies a moonlit-and-silver-and-pale-night quality, the visual register of full-moon-and-Selene-Diana-Luna hand-moonlit-and-silver-and-pale-night full-moon-and-Selene-Diana-Luna-and-Mare-Tranquillitatis luna-and-moonlit-and-silver-and-pale-night surfaces under full-moon-and-Selene-Diana-Luna-and-Mare-Tranquillitatis night-meadow-and-tarn-and-monastic-cloister silver-night-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to sol and terra 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.