Bold Lodge Crimson

Old English beald, brave, courageous — a quality word that crossed over to color in the late seventeenth century. Bold describes a color that asserts itself: high saturation combined with mid lightness, where the hue presents itself without compromise. Sits at the center of the bold-bucket grid, near strong and rich. Closer to a presence word than a pigment word.

Old French loge, hut. As a color modifier, lodge implies a forest-shelter-and-hunting quality, the visual register of English-and-Scottish hunting-lodge-and-fishing-lodge timber-and-stone forest-and-moor remote-shelter surfaces under remote Highland-Hunting-lodge wilderness light. Sits at the modifier-and-place end of the grid, parallel to cottage and hut 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.