Earnest Tyr Ruby

Old English eornost, seriousness, zeal. Used as a color modifier since the nineteenth century for hues that read as committed but unshowy — the working blues of denim, the deep greens of Quaker meetinghouses. Sits in the bold-and-quiet corner of the grid, slightly less luminous than resolute and slightly less institutional than imperial.

Old Norse Týr, one-handed-god-of-justice-and-war. As a color modifier, tyr implies a one-handed-god-and-Fenrir-binding-and-justice quality, the visual register of Norse-Tyr-and-Fenrir-binding hand-one-handed-god-and-Fenrir-binding-and-justice Norse-Tyr-and-Fenrir-binding-and-Tiwaz-rune tyr-and-one-handed-god-and-Fenrir-binding surfaces under Norse-Tyr-and-Fenrir-binding-and-Tiwaz-rune Asgard-pantheon-and-Tiwaz-rune-stone justice-and-binding-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to thor and odin 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.