Polished Float Turquoise

Latin polīre, to polish — past-participle of polish. As a color modifier, polished implies a clear-and-smooth-and-glossy quality where the hue carries the visual register of buffed-and-burnished smooth-finish surface. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to burnished and gleaming in usage.

Old English flotian, to-move-on-water-surface. As a color modifier, float implies a buoyant-and-untethered-and-drifting quality, the visual register of lotus-pond-and-petal-on-river-float hand-buoyant-and-untethered-and-drifting lotus-pond-and-petal-on-river-and-paper-lantern floated-and-buoyant-and-untethered-and-drifting surfaces under lotus-pond-and-petal-on-river-and-paper-lantern Heian-and-Edo-and-Yangtze still-water-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to drift and hover 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.