Bold Rain Violet

Old English beald, brave, courageous — a quality word that crossed over to color in the late seventeenth century. Bold describes a color that asserts itself: high saturation combined with mid lightness, where the hue presents itself without compromise. Sits at the center of the bold-bucket grid, near strong and rich. Closer to a presence word than a pigment word.

Old English regn, rain-or-shower. As a color modifier, rain implies a rain-shower-and-wet-and-Atlantic-front quality, the visual register of Atlantic-front-rain-and-monsoon-rain hand-rain-shower-and-wet-and-Atlantic-front Atlantic-front-rain-and-monsoon-rain-and-Lake-District-deluge rain-and-rain-shower-and-wet surfaces under Atlantic-front-rain-and-monsoon-rain-and-Lake-District-deluge Cumbrian-fells-and-Borrowdale-and-Snowdonia Atlantic-rain-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to sleet and flurry 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.