Sinewy Shu
Sinewy Shu (#CB465A) is a true red with a warm character. It leans warm, pulling light toward red, orange, and yellow. Naturally inviting, it suits editorial and hospitality contexts. Its HSL profile (351°, 56%, 54%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary teal. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English sinu, sinew — adjectival suffix -y. As a color modifier, sinewy implies a saturated-and-muscular-and-firm quality where the hue carries the lean-and-strong visual presence of a Roman-statue athletic figure. Sits at the bold-and-firm end of the grid, parallel to stalwart and rugged in usage.
Vermillion in Japanese — specifically the cinnabar-derived pigment used since the Heian period to paint Shinto torii gates, temple beams, and the lacquer of imperial seals. The color refers to a freshly painted Inari Shrine torii: a saturated, slightly orange red with the high gloss of layered urushi lacquer. Brighter than crimson, deeper than tangerine, with the sacred-architectural weight of a color reserved for thresholds between human and divine.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.