Lustrous Lace Lime

From the Latin lustrare, to illuminate — used as a color word since the seventeenth century for hues with the slight specular shine of polished metal or silk. Lustrous green, lustrous gold: the implication is moderate-to-high saturation combined with surface reflectivity. Sits at the bright-and-glossy corner alongside gleaming.

Old French laz, cord / lace. As a color modifier, lace implies a hand-tatted-and-decorative-net quality, the visual register of Edwardian-and-Belgian-Bruges-lace hand-tatted-and-bobbin-lace bridal-and-formal-wear delicate-network-pattern textile surfaces under Bruges-and-Edwardian hand-tatted-lace filtered light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to silk and fluff in usage.

Citrus aurantiifolia and its key-lime cousin — small, intensely sour green citrus carried by Arab traders from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean by the eleventh century, then to the Caribbean with Columbus. The color refers to the skin of a fully ripe Persian lime: a saturated, slightly yellow-shifted green with the matte finish of citrus rind. Cooler than chartreuse, sharper than sage, with the same chlorophyll the fruit loses if left to ripen to yellow.