Devout Wood Crimson

From the Latin devotus, consecrated — used principally in religious contexts for the dignified deep colors of sacred art and ecclesiastical dress. As a color modifier, devout implies saturation combined with restraint: the deep blues of Marian mantles, the deep reds of cardinals' robes. Sits in the bold-and-formal corner alongside imperial.

Old English wudu, forest. As a color modifier, wood implies a deciduous-canopy-and-litter quality, the visual register of English-and-Welsh oak-and-beech mixed-deciduous forest leaf-litter-and-canopy hand-walked path surfaces in dappled-deciduous-broadleaf-canopy filtered-light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to copse and grove in usage.

From the Old Spanish cremesin, itself from the Arabic qirmiz — the kermes scale insect, dried and ground into a brilliant carmine dye prized in the medieval Mediterranean. For centuries the most expensive red on a draper's shelf, reserved for cardinals, kings, and the cloth that gave English the word crimson. Cooler than scarlet, deeper than rose; the color of pomegranate seeds and a serious occasion.