Welcoming Murk Teal

Old English wel-cuman, well-coming — present-participle of welcome. As a color modifier, welcoming implies a clear-and-inviting-and-warm quality where the hue carries the visual register of cordial-and-hospitable color-tone. Sits at the crisp-and-cheerful end of the grid, parallel to hospitable and inviting in usage.

Old Norse myrkr, darkness-or-obscurity. As a color modifier, murk implies a clouded-and-dim-and-obscured quality, the visual register of fen-and-bog-and-tarn-murk hand-clouded-and-dim-and-obscured fen-and-bog-and-tarn-and-marsh murky-and-clouded-and-dim-and-obscured surfaces under fen-and-bog-and-tarn-and-marsh peat-stained-and-clouded-and-dim swamp-and-fen-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to gloom and pall 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.