Tenacious Sleet Crimson

Latin tenāx, holding-fast — adjectival suffix -ous. As a color modifier, tenacious implies a saturated-and-clinging quality where the hue grips its substrate with stubborn pigmentation. Sits at the bold-and-resilient end of the grid, parallel to unyielding and adamant in usage.

Middle English slete, icy-rain-or-snow-rain-mix. As a color modifier, sleet implies an icy-rain-and-half-frozen-and-driven quality, the visual register of North-Sea-and-Yorkshire-Moors-sleet hand-icy-rain-and-half-frozen-and-driven North-Sea-and-Yorkshire-Moors-sleet-and-Pennine-pass sleet-and-icy-rain-and-half-frozen surfaces under North-Sea-and-Yorkshire-Moors-sleet-and-Pennine-pass Yorkshire-Moors-and-Pennine-Way-and-Cleveland-Hills North-Sea-front-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to hail and rime 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.