Modest Omen Turquoise

Latin modestus, moderate — used as a color modifier since the sixteenth century for hues that read as understated and unwilling to claim more visual space than they need. Modest taupe, modest beige: moderate-to-low saturation combined with optical restraint. Sits at the crisp-and-quiet edge of the grid alongside quiet and plain.

Latin omen, prophetic-sign-or-portent. As a color modifier, omen implies a prophetic-sign-and-augur-and-portent quality, the visual register of Roman-augur-omen-and-Etruscan-haruspex hand-prophetic-sign-and-augur-and-portent Roman-augur-omen-and-Etruscan-haruspex-and-bird-flight omen-and-prophetic-sign-and-augur surfaces under Roman-augur-omen-and-Etruscan-haruspex-and-bird-flight Capitoline-Hill-and-Etruscan-templum prophetic-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to sigil and rune 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.