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Tenacious Sabz

#51980a
Notes

Tenacious Sabz (#51980A) is a deep lime with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (90°, 88%, 32%) places it in the highly saturated band at a dark 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 indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#51980a
RGB
rgb(81, 152, 10)
HSL
hsl(90, 88%, 32%)
HWB
hwb(90 4% 40%)
OKLCH
oklch(60.9% 0.174 134.7)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3862 0.5894 0.1789)
HSV
hsv(90, 93%, 60%)
LAB
lab(56.31% -43.46 57.16)
LCH
lch(56.31% 71.80 127.25)
CMYK
cmyk(47%, 0%, 93%, 40%)

Etymology

Tenacious
adjective

Latin tenāx, holding-fast — adjectival suffix -ous. As a color modifier, tenacious implies a saturated-and-clinging quality where the hue grips its substrate with stubborn pigmentation. Sits at the bold-and-resilient end of the grid, parallel to unyielding and adamant in usage.

Sabz
noun

The Persian word for green — both as the color of foliage and as a metaphor for renewal in Persian poetry (Hafiz writes of the sabz-poosh — those clothed in green). Sabz refers to the green of fresh herbs in a Persian sabzi-khordan salad: a saturated, slightly yellow-green with the matte finish of fresh-picked greens. The Iranian cousin of green.

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.

#51980a
Original
#9e8b00
Protanopia
#958521
Deuteranopia
#4f9281
Tritanopia
#7f7f7f
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).
AA Largeon White
3.59:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
5.85:1

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
##51980A
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3862 0.5894 0.1789)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.174

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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