Sturdy Domus Crimson

Old French estourdi, stunned, reckless — drifted in English to mean robust, well-built. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as durable and unfussy — the working browns of saddle leather, the working greens of pasture wool. Sits in the bold-and-warm corner alongside robust and solid.

Latin domus, house-or-home. As a color modifier, domus implies a Latin-house-and-Roman-domus-and-atrium quality, the visual register of Pompeian-domus-and-Roman-atrium hand-Latin-house-and-Roman-domus-and-atrium Pompeian-domus-and-Roman-atrium-and-impluvium domus-and-Latin-house surfaces under Pompeian-domus-and-Roman-atrium-and-impluvium Pompeian-and-Herculaneum-domus Roman-villa-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to arbor and via 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.