Puce

I was just watching (well, listening to while doing work) Nigella on Youtube, and she said something about using beetroots for a puce-colored dressing. I hadn't really been paying attention to what she was saying before that, but I totally did a double take. How were bright red beets going to turn into a muddy green muck color? And why would you want to "anoint" your griddled halloumi with brownish-green puree?

So I Wikipedia'd "puce". And I realized that I had wrongly interpreted the color "puce" for my entire life.

Puce (often misspelled as "puse", "peuse" or "peuce") is a color that is defined as ranging from reddish-brown to purplish-brown, with the latter being the more widely-accepted definition found in reputable sources. Puce is a shade of red.


Puce
(via Wikipedia)

Why in the world did I think it was green?

Probably because it looks like "puke". Which goes to show that you shouldn't rely on your instincts to define  English words. If I had it my way, I'd name the color of puce "chartreuse" and vice-versa. Chartreuse is an awesome name but an awful color.

Chartreuse (traditional)
(via Wikipedia)

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