Punchy Void Violet

A modern adjectival form of punch, to strike sharply. Used as a color word since the early twentieth century for hues that read as highly contrasting and visually loud. Punchy red, punchy yellow: the implication is full saturation combined with optical impact. Sits across the bold and bright buckets, near vivid and striking.

Latin vocivus, empty-or-vacant. As a color modifier, void implies an empty-and-vacant-and-bottomless quality, the visual register of Yves-Klein-and-Rothko-void hand-empty-and-vacant-and-bottomless Yves-Klein-and-Rothko-and-Malevich-Black-Square voided-and-empty-and-vacant-and-bottomless surfaces under Yves-Klein-and-Rothko-and-Malevich-Black-Square monochrome-canvas-and-color-field-and-suprematist gallery-and-void-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to blank and hollow in usage.

Viola odorata, the European sweet violet — small, fragrant, and the original meaning of the color name in English (the Violet of the rainbow). The color refers to a fresh sweet violet blossom in late winter: a saturated, slightly red-shifted deep blue-purple with the matte finish of small five-petaled flower. Cooler than amethyst, warmer than indigo, with the perfumed weight of a flower used in Roman garlands and Victorian eau de toilette.