Sturdy Wink violet

Old French estourdi, stunned, reckless — drifted in English to mean robust, well-built. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as durable and unfussy — the working browns of saddle leather, the working greens of pasture wool. Sits in the bold-and-warm corner alongside robust and solid.

Old English wincian, to-close-eye-briefly. As a color modifier, wink implies a brief-and-coy-and-twinkling quality, the visual register of star-and-candle-flame-wink hand-brief-and-coy-and-twinkling star-and-candle-flame-and-distant-window winked-and-brief-and-coy-and-twinkling surfaces under star-and-candle-flame-and-distant-window twinkling-and-coy-and-brief night-window-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to blink and glint 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.