Earnest Flurry Ruby

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.

Imitative origin, quick-burst-of-snow. As a color modifier, flurry implies a quick-burst-of-snow-and-light-and-fluttering quality, the visual register of Adirondack-and-Vermont-flurry hand-quick-burst-of-snow-and-light-and-fluttering Adirondack-and-Vermont-flurry-and-New-England-snow flurry-and-quick-burst-of-snow surfaces under Adirondack-and-Vermont-flurry-and-New-England-snow Adirondack-and-Green-Mountains-and-White-Mountains New-England-snow-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to slush and thaw in usage.

From the Latin ruber — simply, red. The gemstone is a chromium-tinged corundum, harder than anything in nature except diamond, and so saturated that a fine Burmese pigeon's blood ruby at auction outpaces a comparable diamond by weight. The color borrows the gem's confidence: a clear, glassy red without the brown of garnet or the blue of crimson.