Pressed Vesta Teal

Latin pressāre, to press — past-participle of press. As a color modifier, pressed implies a clear-and-smoothed-and-flattened quality, the crisp color of Mid-Century-Modern freshly-pressed-shirt-and-trouser ironed-textile finish. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to ironed and starched in usage.

Latin Vesta, Roman-goddess-of-hearth. As a color modifier, vesta implies an asteroid-and-hearth-flame-and-bright-and-rocky quality, the visual register of Vesta-asteroid-and-Roman-hearth hand-asteroid-and-hearth-flame-and-bright Vesta-asteroid-and-Roman-hearth-and-Dawn-mission vesta-and-asteroid-and-hearth-flame-and-bright surfaces under Vesta-asteroid-and-Roman-hearth-and-Dawn-mission asteroid-belt-and-Vestal-Temple sacred-flame-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to ceres and juno 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.