Welcoming Spit Sky

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 English spitu, narrow point of land. As a color modifier, spit implies a narrow-projection quality, the visual register of Cape-Cod-and-Spurn-Head narrow-tide-deposited sand-spit-and-shingle hand-walked coastal surfaces extending into open water. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to strand and cay in usage.

The blue of a clear sky at noon — produced by Rayleigh scattering, the preferential dispersion of shorter wavelengths through atmospheric molecules. Air itself is colorless; the color we see is sunlight scattered toward our eyes by every cubic kilometer above. The reference shade is mid-latitude noon under a high pressure system: a clean, slightly green-shifted blue with the luminous depth of light scattered across an entire hemisphere of air.