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Pulsating Drear Turquoise

#4ee5cb
Notes

Pulsating Drear Turquoise (#4EE5CB) is a true teal with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (170°, 74%, 60%) 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
#4ee5cb
RGB
rgb(78, 229, 203)
HSL
hsl(170, 74%, 60%)
HWB
hwb(170 31% 10%)
OKLCH
oklch(83.6% 0.132 179.1)
HSV
hsv(170, 66%, 90%)
LAB
lab(82.90% -45.63 1.04)
LCH
lch(82.90% 45.64 178.69)
CMYK
cmyk(66%, 0%, 11%, 10%)

Etymology

Pulsating
adjective

Latin pulsātio, beating — present-participle of pulsate, sharing root with pellere (to drive). As a color modifier, pulsating implies a saturated-and-beating-and-rhythmic quality, the bright color of rave-and-festival light-show synchronized-pulse rhythmic-emission. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to throbbing and strobing in usage.

Drear
modifier

Old English drēor, gore-and-sorrow. As a color modifier, drear implies a bleak-and-cheerless-and-sorrowful quality, the visual register of Brontë-moorland-and-Hardy-heath-drear hand-bleak-and-cheerless-and-sorrowful Brontë-moorland-and-Hardy-heath-and-Wuthering drear-and-bleak-and-cheerless-and-sorrowful surfaces under Brontë-moorland-and-Hardy-heath-and-Wuthering rain-swept-and-low-cloud-and-empty-vista Yorkshire-and-Wessex-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to bleak and gloom in usage.

Turquoise
noun

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.

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

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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.

#4ee5cb
Original
#dcd8ca
Protanopia
#c6c8cd
Deuteranopia
#00e9dd
Tritanopia
#c3c3c3
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
1.57:1
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
13.39:1

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