Grave Liriope
Grave Liriope (#5A2270) is a deep violet 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 (283°, 53%, 29%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary green. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin gravis, heavy — also the noun grave (burial pit). As a color modifier, grave implies a deep-and-formal seriousness where the hue carries weight beyond its lightness alone. Sits at the deep-and-solemn end of the grid, parallel to solemn and funereal in tone.
Asian lily turf (Liriope muscari) — an East-Asian Asparagaceae groundcover with vertical spikes of deep-violet beadlike flowers above grass-like foliage in late summer. Liriope color refers to a fully bloomed Liriope muscari spike: a saturated, slightly cool deep violet with the matte finish of fresh small beadlike flowers. Named for the Liríopē river-nymph of Greek mythology, mother of Narcissus.
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.