Smoldering Mira Ruby

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 mira, wonderful-or-marvelous. As a color modifier, mira implies a variable-pulsing-and-red-giant-and-wondrous quality, the visual register of Cetus-Whale-and-variable-Mira-the-Wonder hand-variable-pulsing-and-red-giant-and-wondrous Cetus-Whale-and-variable-Mira-and-Hevelius-discovery mira-and-variable-pulsing-and-red-giant-and-wondrous surfaces under Cetus-Whale-and-variable-Mira-and-Hevelius-discovery 332-day-cycle-and-deep-red-pulse pulsing-stellar-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to nova and pulsar in usage.

From the Latin ruber — simply, red. The gemstone is a chromium-tinged corundum, harder than anything in nature except diamond, and so saturated that a fine Burmese pigeon's blood ruby at auction outpaces a comparable diamond by weight. The color borrows the gem's confidence: a clear, glassy red without the brown of garnet or the blue of crimson.