Earnest Hun Crimson

Old English eornost, seriousness, zeal. Used as a color modifier since the nineteenth century for hues that read as committed but unshowy — the working blues of denim, the deep greens of Quaker meetinghouses. Sits in the bold-and-quiet corner of the grid, slightly less luminous than resolute and slightly less institutional than imperial.

Greek Hunni, Huns. As a color modifier, hun implies a Central-Asian-steppe-migration quality, the visual register of Attila-the-Hun late-Roman-period Central-Asian steppe-migration-and-mounted-archery hand-built warrior-camp surfaces under Central-Asian-steppe-and-Pannonian-plain Hunnic-Age horse-archer light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to vandal and goth 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.