Lively Tile Goldenrod

An adjectival form of life — used as a color word since the seventeenth century for hues that read as energetic. Lively coral, lively chartreuse: the implication is saturation combined with optical liveliness, the slight visual restlessness of a color that feels animated. Sits at the bright-bucket center.

Old English tigele, roof-tile. As a color modifier, tile implies a fired-clay-or-stone-flat quality, the visual register of Spanish-and-Italian-and-Persian-tile hand-fired-and-glazed clay-and-stone-and-marble Spanish-and-Italian-and-Persian-tile surfaces under Spanish-and-Italian-and-Persian-tile workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to slab and plate in usage.

Solidago, the late-summer wildflower of North American meadows whose tall sprays of small yellow flowers signal the end of the growing season. The color refers to the flower head at full bloom: a warm, slightly muted yellow-orange with the matte finish of small clustered florets. Cooler than mustard, deeper than dandelion. The state flower of Kentucky and Nebraska, a pollinator magnet, and the original native dye for early American homespun.