Sturdy Pax 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.

Latin pax, peace-or-treaty. As a color modifier, pax implies a Latin-peace-and-Pax-Romana-and-Pax-Augusta quality, the visual register of Pax-Romana-and-Ara-Pacis hand-Latin-peace-and-Pax-Romana-and-Pax-Augusta Pax-Romana-and-Ara-Pacis-and-Augustan-Rome pax-and-Latin-peace surfaces under Pax-Romana-and-Ara-Pacis-and-Augustan-Rome Augustan-and-Antonine-Rome imperial-peace-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to ave and salve 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.