Earnest Odin Ruby

Old English eornost, seriousness, zeal. Used as a color modifier since the nineteenth century for hues that read as committed but unshowy — the working blues of denim, the deep greens of Quaker meetinghouses. Sits in the bold-and-quiet corner of the grid, slightly less luminous than resolute and slightly less institutional than imperial.

Old Norse Óðinn, all-father-of-the-Aesir. As a color modifier, odin implies a one-eyed-and-raven-and-runic-wisdom quality, the visual register of Norse-all-father-Odin-and-Yggdrasil hand-one-eyed-and-raven-and-runic-wisdom Norse-all-father-Odin-and-Yggdrasil-and-Asgard odin-and-one-eyed-and-raven-and-runic-wisdom surfaces under Norse-all-father-Odin-and-Yggdrasil-and-Asgard Hugin-and-Munin-raven-and-Mimir-well runic-wisdom-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to thor and freya in usage.

From the Latin ruber — simply, red. The gemstone is a chromium-tinged corundum, harder than anything in nature except diamond, and so saturated that a fine Burmese pigeon's blood ruby at auction outpaces a comparable diamond by weight. The color borrows the gem's confidence: a clear, glassy red without the brown of garnet or the blue of crimson.