Earnest Park Violet

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.

Old French parc, enclosed-game-preserve. As a color modifier, park implies a landscaped-and-managed-greenspace quality, the visual register of Stowe-and-Versailles hand-landscaped-and-managed enclosed deer-park-and-pleasure-garden surfaces under designed-landscape Stowe-and-Versailles formal-pleasure-garden light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to garden and court 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.