Reliable Jolly Teal

Latin re-ligāre, to bind back — adjectival suffix -able. As a color modifier, reliable implies a clear-and-trustworthy-and-consistent quality where the hue carries the visual register of dependable-and-consistent design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-honest end of the grid, parallel to dependable and trustworthy in usage.

Old French jolif, festive-and-pretty. As a color modifier, jolly implies a hearty-and-warm-and-festive quality, the visual register of Dickens-Christmas-and-Falstaffian-jolly hand-hearty-and-warm-and-festive Dickens-Christmas-and-Falstaffian-and-Pickwickian jollied-and-hearty-and-warm-and-festive surfaces under Dickens-Christmas-and-Falstaffian-and-Pickwickian goose-and-plum-pudding-and-roaring-hearth Christmas-Eve-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to merry and mirth in usage.

Anas crecca, the small dabbling duck whose male in breeding plumage sports a chestnut head crossed by a glossy green-blue stripe. The color refers to that stripe — the iridescent panel just behind the eye: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical depth of structural color rather than pigment. Cooler than cypress, warmer than cerulean, with the ornithological specificity of a color named for one feather of one bird.