Sturdy Knell violet

Old French estourdi, stunned, reckless — drifted in English to mean robust, well-built. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as durable and unfussy — the working browns of saddle leather, the working greens of pasture wool. Sits in the bold-and-warm corner alongside robust and solid.

Old English cnyll, funeral-bell. As a color modifier, knell implies a funeral-and-passing-bell quality, the visual register of English-funeral-and-passing-bell slow-and-tolling-funeral mourning-bell-and-bell-tower-tolling slow-and-mourning surfaces under slow-tolling-funeral-bell mourning candlelight. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to bell and vesper 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.