Certain Swirl Mulberry

Latin certus, fixed / sure — sharing root with English concern and certify. As a color modifier, certain implies a saturated-and-unambiguous quality where the hue declares its character without hesitation. Sits at the bold-and-confident end of the grid, parallel to assured and decisive in usage.

Middle English swirlen, to-whirl-in-eddies. As a color modifier, swirl implies a curling-and-eddying-and-spiraling quality, the visual register of Van-Gogh-Starry-Night-and-Hokusai-Wave-swirl hand-curling-and-eddying-and-spiraling Van-Gogh-Starry-Night-and-Hokusai-Wave-and-Art-Nouveau swirled-and-curling-and-eddying-and-spiraling surfaces under Van-Gogh-Starry-Night-and-Hokusai-Wave-and-Art-Nouveau brush-stroke-and-cresting-wave-and-vine-tendril nocturne-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to eddy and stir in usage.

The genus Morus — the white mulberry (M. alba) feeds silkworms; the black mulberry (M. nigra) bears the deep purple fruit that stains everything it touches. The color refers to a ripe black mulberry: a saturated, slightly red-shifted very deep purple with the slight juiciness of a compound fruit. Cooler than wine, warmer than indigo, with the agricultural weight of a tree that supported the entire Chinese silk industry for two thousand years.