Heavy Mesh Crimson

Old English hefig, weighty — cognate with heave. Used as a color modifier since at least the seventeenth century to indicate weight in saturation as much as value: heavy with pigment, heavy-bodied. In the engine's adjective grid, heavy sits alongside deep and plush in the dark-and-saturated quadrant. Closer to a fabric description than a pure value word.

Old English mæscre, netting. As a color modifier, mesh implies a netted-and-woven-network quality, the visual register of hand-knotted-and-woven-mesh hand-knotted-and-woven-net wire-and-fiber-and-cord-mesh hand-knotted-and-woven-mesh-and-net surfaces under hand-knotted-and-woven-mesh-and-net working light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to wire and web 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.