Stately Pang Crimson

An adjectival form of state, condition of dignity. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for the deep saturated jewel tones of formal ceremony — the deep blue of a robes-of-state, the deep red of a state-banquet velvet. Sits in the bold-and-formal corner alongside imperial and royal, with slightly less institutional weight.

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.