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Bridled Goldfinch

#9c8b6b
Notes

Bridled Goldfinch (#9C8B6B) is a true amber with a warm character. It leans warm, pulling light toward red, orange, and yellow. Naturally inviting, it suits editorial and hospitality contexts. Its HSL profile (39°, 20%, 52%) places it in the muted band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary azure. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#9c8b6b
RGB
rgb(156, 139, 107)
HSL
hsl(39, 20%, 52%)
HWB
hwb(39 42% 39%)
OKLCH
oklch(64.4% 0.050 83.1)
P3
color(display-p3 0.6006 0.5475 0.4344)
HSV
hsv(39, 31%, 61%)
LAB
lab(58.60% 1.35 19.48)
LCH
lch(58.60% 19.53 86.05)
CMYK
cmyk(0%, 11%, 31%, 39%)

Etymology

Bridled
adjective

Old English brigdel, bridle — past-participle of bridle. As a color modifier, bridled implies a hushed-and-restrained-and-controlled quality where the hue carries the visual register of intentionally-controlled-and-restrained color-amplitude limitation. Sits at the hushed-and-restrained end of the grid, parallel to curbed and restrained in usage.

Goldfinch
noun

Carduelis carduelis, the European goldfinch whose male plumage features bright yellow wing bars and a red face mask. The color refers to the yellow wing bar of a fresh-molted goldfinch: a saturated, slightly red yellow with the matte finish of carotenoid-pigmented feathers. Brighter than canary.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

Click any swatch to explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#9c8b6b
Original
#938a69
Protanopia
#978f6c
Deuteranopia
#a48582
Tritanopia
#8c8c8c
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AA Largeon White
3.32:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAon Black
6.32:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##9C8B6B
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.6006 0.5475 0.4344)
Inside sRGBOKLCH chroma 0.050

This color sits well within the sRGB cube. P3 and sRGB share the gray axis and most desaturated tones, so a P3 display renders this identically to an sRGB display.

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