Punchy Wend Crimson

A modern adjectival form of punch, to strike sharply. Used as a color word since the early twentieth century for hues that read as highly contrasting and visually loud. Punchy red, punchy yellow: the implication is full saturation combined with optical impact. Sits across the bold and bright buckets, near vivid and striking.

Old English wendan, to-turn-or-go. As a color modifier, wend implies a winding-and-turning-and-meandered quality, the visual register of pilgrim-path-and-river-wend hand-winding-and-turning-and-meandered pilgrim-path-and-river-and-Roman-road wended-and-winding-and-turning-and-meandered surfaces under pilgrim-path-and-river-and-Roman-road Camino-and-Pennine-Way-and-Kumano hilltop-pilgrim-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to drift and roam 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.