Cerulean
Definition
adjective
1. A hue of blue with a slight green tint, it is between azure and teal. It is often described as the color of the sky on a clear day. In RGB color coordinates, I found (0, 123, 167), (0, 127, 255), (29, 172, 214), and several other variations, so it is clear that the color represents a range of shades, not a single value.
2. A pigment shade is that is the standard for sky blue among artists.
The river in the picture for this Weekly Word entry is rendered in shades of cerulean blue.
Word Origin
The first recorded use of cerulean as a color in English was i 1590. The pigment was first synthesized by Swiss chemist Albrecht Höpfner in the late 18th or early 19th century. Art suppliers started referring to cobalt stannate as cerulean in the second half of the 19th century, but it was not widely used by European artists until it became commercially available as an oil paint in the 1870s. However, the color is seen in ancient pottery from China and other parts of the world.
Latin
caeruleus (dark blue or blue-green)
believed to be the diminutive of caelum (heaven or sky)
Antonyms/near Antonyms
1: combined light (crimson, ruby, scarlet, rose)
2. combined pigment (orange, cinnamon, cinnabar)