Cleansed Foil Teal

Old English clǣnsian, to make clean — past-participle of cleanse. As a color modifier, cleansed implies a clear-and-purified quality where the hue has been stripped of any contaminating tint. Sits at the crisp-and-clear end of the grid, parallel to fresh and pristine in usage.

Old French fueille, leaf. As a color modifier, foil implies a thin-rolled-metal-leaf quality, the visual register of hand-rolled-and-beaten-foil hand-rolled-and-beaten-thin gold-and-silver-and-tin-foil hand-rolled-and-beaten-thin-foil surfaces under hand-rolled-and-beaten-foil workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to gold and gilt 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.