Royal blue describes both a bright shade and a dark shade of azure blue. It is said to have been invented by millers in Rode, Somerset, a consortium of which won a competition to make a dress for the British queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Traditionally, dictionaries define royal blue as a deep to dark blue, often with a purple or faint reddish tinge.
By the 1950s, many people began to think of royal blue as a brighter color, and it is this brighter color that was chosen as the web color "royal blue" (the web colors when they were formulated in 1987 were originally known as the X11 colors, since the World Wide Web did not come into operation until 1991). The World Wide Web Consortium designated the keyword "royalblue" to be this much brighter color, rather than the traditional darker version of royal blue.
Read more about Royal Blue: Royal Blue in Human Culture
Famous quotes containing the words royal and/or blue:
“When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.”
—Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978)
“But now Miss America, World’s champion woman, you take your promenading self down into the cobalt blue waters of the Caribbean and see what happens. You meet a lot of darkish men who make vociferous love to you, but otherwise pay you no mid.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)