Confident Tribe Crimson

A late-Latin participle, confidens, trusting — borrowed into English in the sixteenth century. As a color modifier, confident implies saturation combined with poise: a confident red doesn't try too hard, just sits at the level of its hue without overreaching. Sits in the bold-bucket center near bold and resolute.

Latin tribus, one-of-three-original-tribes. As a color modifier, tribe implies a kin-and-clan-and-extended-family quality, the visual register of pre-modern-tribal-and-kinship hand-built tent-and-totem-and-elder-council clan-and-kinship surfaces under pre-modern tribal-and-kinship hand-built encampment-and-elder-council firelight. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to clan and kin 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.