Smoldering Pisces Crimson

The progressive participle of smolder, to burn slowly without flame. Used as a color word since the late nineteenth century for the deep reds and oranges of barely-flame coal — the warm saturated darks where the heat is internal rather than emitted. Sits in the bold-and-warm corner, slightly less luminous than burning and slightly less calm than rich.

Latin pisces, fishes-of-the-zodiac. As a color modifier, pisces implies a two-fishes-and-water-sign-and-Jupiter-Neptune-ruled-mutable-water quality, the visual register of Hellenic-Pisces-and-Aphrodite-Eros-fishes hand-two-fishes-and-water-sign-and-Jupiter-Neptune-ruled-mutable-water Hellenic-Pisces-and-Aphrodite-Eros-fishes-and-Ichthys pisces-and-two-fishes-and-water-sign surfaces under Hellenic-Pisces-and-Aphrodite-Eros-fishes-and-Ichthys late-winter-and-February-and-March-into-April mutable-water-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to aquarius and aries in usage.

From the Old Spanish cremesin, itself from the Arabic qirmiz — the kermes scale insect, dried and ground into a brilliant carmine dye prized in the medieval Mediterranean. For centuries the most expensive red on a draper's shelf, reserved for cardinals, kings, and the cloth that gave English the word crimson. Cooler than scarlet, deeper than rose; the color of pomegranate seeds and a serious occasion.