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Magisterial Shag Emerald

#53933c
Notes

Magisterial Shag Emerald (#53933C) is a true green with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (104°, 42%, 41%) 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 violet. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#53933c
RGB
rgb(83, 147, 60)
HSL
hsl(104, 42%, 41%)
HWB
hwb(104 24% 42%)
OKLCH
oklch(60.0% 0.138 138.2)
P3
color(display-p3 0.3855 0.5703 0.2800)
HSV
hsv(104, 59%, 58%)
LAB
lab(55.11% -37.39 39.04)
LCH
lch(55.11% 54.06 133.77)
CMYK
cmyk(44%, 0%, 59%, 42%)

Etymology

Magisterial
adjective

Latin magisterium, teacher's office — adjectival suffix -al. As a color modifier, magisterial implies a saturated-and-authoritative-and-formal quality, the deep-rich color of Qing-dynasty civil-magistrate court-and-ritual textiles and Imperial-Examination scholar-class livery. Sits at the bold-and-authoritative end of the grid, parallel to authoritative and commanding.

Shag
modifier

Old Norse skagg, beard / rough-hair. As a color modifier, shag implies a rough-and-shaggy-hair-or-pile quality, the visual register of Mid-Century-Modern-and-1970s-shag-rug hand-tufted-and-rough-and-shaggy wool-and-yarn-and-pile Mid-Century-Modern-and-1970s shag-rug surfaces under Mid-Century-Modern-and-1970s shag-rug interior-decoration light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to fuzz and fluff in usage.

Emerald
noun

A chromium-tinged variety of beryl — the gemstone mined from the Cleopatra-era Mons Smaragdus in Egypt, the Muzo deposits of Colombia, and the Sandawana mines of Zimbabwe. Emerald green refers to a high-clarity faceted emerald with strong color saturation: a saturated, slightly blue-shifted green with the gem's signature internal life. Cooler than fern, warmer than teal, with the heraldic weight of two thousand years of royal favor.

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.

#53933c
Original
#978733
Protanopia
#8f8242
Deuteranopia
#4f8e80
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
3.75:1
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
5.61:1

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
##53933C
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.3855 0.5703 0.2800)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.138

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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