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Quiet Stole Verdigris

#49a9a2
Notes

Quiet Stole Verdigris (#49A9A2) is a true cyan with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (176°, 40%, 47%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary red. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#49a9a2
RGB
rgb(73, 169, 162)
HSL
hsl(176, 40%, 47%)
HWB
hwb(176 29% 34%)
OKLCH
oklch(67.6% 0.091 188.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3889 0.6544 0.6333)
HSV
hsv(176, 57%, 66%)
LAB
lab(63.67% -29.79 -4.91)
LCH
lch(63.67% 30.19 189.35)
CMYK
cmyk(57%, 0%, 4%, 34%)

Etymology

Quiet
adjective

Latin quietus, at rest — used as a color modifier since the medieval period for hues that read as restrained. Quiet pink, quiet blue: low saturation combined with optical calmness. Sits across the crisp and hushed buckets where the color is present but doesn't ask for attention.

Stole
modifier

Latin stola, Roman-women's-and-priestly-robe. As a color modifier, stole implies a Roman-women's-and-priestly-robe quality, the visual register of Roman-stola-and-Catholic-priestly-stole hand-Roman-women's-and-priestly-robe Roman-stola-and-Catholic-priestly-stole-and-Anglican-tippet stole-and-Roman-women's-and-priestly-robe surfaces under Roman-stola-and-Catholic-priestly-stole-and-Anglican-tippet Republican-Rome-and-Catholic-Mass-and-Anglican-Vespers Roman-and-Mass-light. Sits at the modifier-and-textile end of the grid, parallel to cope and robe in usage.

Verdigris
noun

The basic copper carbonate that forms on weathered copper and bronze — the pigment scraped from oxidized metal and used in Renaissance painting before being supplanted by more stable greens. The color refers to a thick verdigris on aged copper roofing or the Statue of Liberty's surface: a soft, slightly muted blue-green with the powdery finish of mineral oxide. Cooler than patina, warmer than seafoam, with the archaeological weight of a mineral made by time.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

Click any swatch to explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#49a9a2
Original
#a0a1a2
Protanopia
#9195a3
Deuteranopia
#00ada7
Tritanopia
#949494
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon White
2.81:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon Black
7.48:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##49A9A2
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3889 0.6544 0.6333)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.091

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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