Lordly Pitted Ruby
Lordly Pitted Ruby (#D6204E) is a true red with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (345°, 74%, 48%) 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 hlāford-līc, lord-like — adjectival suffix -ly. As a color modifier, lordly implies a saturated-and-aristocratic-and-haughty quality, the deep-rich color of pre-modern English-and-French manorial-aristocracy livery and hereditary-estate household-textile. Sits at the bold-and-aristocratic end of the grid, parallel to princely and patrician.
Old English pyt, pit / hole. As a color modifier, pitted implies a small-hole-and-mark-pattern quality, the visual register of worn-and-pitted-stone-and-leather hand-worn-and-pitted stone-and-leather-and-metal worn-and-pitted-mark-and-hole surfaces under worn-and-pitted-stone-and-leather aged light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to mossed and limed 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.
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.