Punchy Sigh Violet

A modern adjectival form of punch, to strike sharply. Used as a color word since the early twentieth century for hues that read as highly contrasting and visually loud. Punchy red, punchy yellow: the implication is full saturation combined with optical impact. Sits across the bold and bright buckets, near vivid and striking.

Middle English sighen, to-breathe-out-audibly. As a color modifier, sigh implies a breathed-out-and-released-and-wistful quality, the visual register of Romantic-poet-and-pining-lover-sigh hand-breathed-out-and-released-and-pining Romantic-poet-and-pining-lover-and-bedside-vigil sighed-and-released-and-breathed-out surfaces under Romantic-poet-and-pining-lover candle-lit-and-bedside-vigil window-and-balcony-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to yearn and brood in usage.

Viola odorata, the European sweet violet — small, fragrant, and the original meaning of the color name in English (the Violet of the rainbow). The color refers to a fresh sweet violet blossom in late winter: a saturated, slightly red-shifted deep blue-purple with the matte finish of small five-petaled flower. Cooler than amethyst, warmer than indigo, with the perfumed weight of a flower used in Roman garlands and Victorian eau de toilette.