Placid Suave Turquoise

Latin placidus, gentle / quiet — derived from placēre (to please). As a color modifier, placid implies a clear-and-unruffled quality where the hue carries the visual register of mirror-smooth lake-surface in windless mid-morning. Sits at the crisp-and-calm end of the grid, parallel to serene and peaceful in usage.

French suave, smooth / sweet. As a color modifier, suave implies a smooth-and-polished-and-elegant quality, the visual register of Belle-Époque-and-Mid-Century-Modern polished-and-elegant-and-smooth Belle-Époque-and-Mid-Century-Modern interior-decoration smooth-and-polished surfaces under Belle-Époque-and-Mid-Century-Modern smooth-and-polished elegance light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to sleek and gloss in usage.

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.