Honest Ābī
Honest Ābī (#4CDCFC) is a true cyan with a neon character. It sits at the high-saturation edge of its family. Use it sparingly, as signage, accent, or highlight against darker surfaces. Its HSL profile (191°, 97%, 64%) places it in the highly saturated band at a mid lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. 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.
Etymology
Latin honestus, honorable — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as straightforward and unembellished, the working browns and grays of vernacular architecture rather than the polished shades of court fashion. Honest brown, honest gray: moderate saturation combined with optical directness. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside plain and frank.
The Persian word for water-colored (from āb, water) — used for the saturated turquoise-blue of Iranian tile and the ābī glaze of Safavid pottery. The color refers to a polished ābī tile from Isfahan's Imam Mosque: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-green with the high gloss of fired faience.
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 exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
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.
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.