Earnest Pang Crimson

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.

Middle English pang, sudden-sharp-pain. As a color modifier, pang implies a sudden-and-piercing-and-sharp quality, the visual register of Petrarchan-sonnet-and-courtly-love-pang hand-sudden-and-piercing-and-sharp Petrarchan-sonnet-and-courtly-love-and-troubadour-lyric panged-and-sudden-and-piercing-and-sharp surfaces under Petrarchan-sonnet-and-courtly-love-and-troubadour-lyric pierced-and-yearning-and-stricken candlelit-poet-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to ache and throb 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.