Dazzling Tideway
Dazzling Tideway (#4DC4FD) 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 (199°, 98%, 65%) 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 orange. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
The progressive participle of dazzle, to overwhelm with brightness — used as a color word since the seventeenth century for hues that read as intense enough to be momentarily blinding. Dazzling white, dazzling pink: the implication is luminance pushed to the extreme. Sits at the bright-bucket extreme alongside electric.
A tidal river channel — particularly the tidal Thames between London Bridge and Teddington Lock, the historical Tideway of London's Thames-side commerce. Tideway color refers to mid-tide Thames at Greenwich on a clear day: a soft, slightly cool deep blue-green with the optical complexity of tidal-mixed brackish water.
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.