Punchy Tart Ruby

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 teart, sharp-or-acid-tasting. As a color modifier, tart implies a sharp-acid-and-fruit-puckered quality, the visual register of Bramley-apple-and-rhubarb-tart hand-sharp-acid-and-fruit-puckered Bramley-apple-and-rhubarb-tart-and-Yorkshire-orchard tart-and-sharp-acid-and-fruit-puckered surfaces under Bramley-apple-and-rhubarb-tart-and-Yorkshire-orchard Yorkshire-orchard-and-Kentish-Garden-of-England puckered-orchard-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to sour and tang 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.