Stately Moot Bougainvillea

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.

Old English mōt, meeting-or-debate-point. As a color modifier, moot implies a debated-and-suspended-and-undecided quality, the visual register of Anglo-Saxon-witenagemot-and-Inns-of-Court-moot hand-argued-and-suspended Anglo-Saxon-witenagemot-and-medieval-moot-court witenagemot-and-Inns-of-Court-and-shire-court mooted-and-debated surfaces under Anglo-Saxon-witenagemot-and-Inns-of-Court oak-bench-and-vellum debate-hall-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to void and blank in usage.

The genus Bougainvillea — South American vines named for the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville, whose 1768 voyage encountered the plant in Rio de Janeiro. The color refers to the bracts (modified leaves) of a vivid magenta Bougainvillea spectabilis: a saturated, slightly cool deep pink-magenta with the matte papery finish of bracts that surround the plant's tiny actual flowers. Brighter than fuchsia, cooler than coral.