Heavy Ether Violet

Old English hefig, weighty — cognate with heave. Used as a color modifier since at least the seventeenth century to indicate weight in saturation as much as value: heavy with pigment, heavy-bodied. In the engine's adjective grid, heavy sits alongside deep and plush in the dark-and-saturated quadrant. Closer to a fabric description than a pure value word.

Greek αἰθήρ, upper-air-or-quintessence. As a color modifier, ether implies a luminiferous-and-pure-upper-air quality, the visual register of Aristotelian-quintessence-and-luminiferous-ether hand-luminiferous-and-pure-upper-air Aristotelian-quintessence-and-luminiferous-and-Newtonian ether-and-luminiferous-and-pure-upper-air surfaces under Aristotelian-quintessence-and-luminiferous-and-Newtonian celestial-spheres-and-natural-philosophy upper-air-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to plasma and nebula 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.