Velvety Ares Rose

An adjectival form of velvet, used since the eighteenth century for colors that read as if they had the matte light-absorbing quality of velvet. Implies high saturation combined with a non-glossy surface — the matte richness of a deep wine in a fabric rather than in a glass. Sits in the bold-and-deep corner of the grid alongside plush and lush.

Greek Ἄρης, god-of-war. As a color modifier, ares implies a war-god-and-iron-and-blood quality, the visual register of Olympian-Ares-and-Spartan-temple-Ares hand-war-god-and-iron-and-blood Olympian-Ares-and-Spartan-temple-and-Areopagus ares-and-war-god-and-iron-and-blood surfaces under Olympian-Ares-and-Spartan-temple-and-Areopagus Athenian-Acropolis-and-rocky-outcrop war-god-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to zeus and atlas in usage.

The Latin rosa, the Greek rhodon, the Persian gul — every European language has a different name for the same flower and the same color. Rose covers the spectrum from blush to fuchsia depending on the cultivar, but in pigment shorthand it means a cool, slightly bluish red — the inside of a damask petal, the dye that washes out of madder root.