Russet (color)

{{Short description|Reddish-brown color}}

{{Infobox color

|title=Russet

|hex=80461B

|source=ColorHexa{{Cite web |title=Russet / #80461b hex color |url=https://www.colorhexa.com/80461b |access-date=2025-03-12 |website=ColorHexa |language=en-us}}

|isccname=Strong brown}}

Russet is a dark brown color with a reddish-orange tinge. As a tertiary color, russet is an equal mix of orange and purple pigments. The first recorded use of russet as a color name in English was in 1562.{{cite book|last1=Maerz|first1=Aloys J.|last2=Paul|first2=Morris Rea|year=1930|title=A Dictionary of Color|location=New York|publisher=McGraw-Hill|page=177|asin=B0014LYBSG}}

The source of this color is The ISCC-NBS Method of Designating Colors and a Dictionary of Color Names (1955) used by stamp collectors to identify the colors of stamps.See sample of the color Russet (Color Sample #55) displayed on indicated page: {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20121226050124/http://tx4.us/nbs/nbs-r.htm ISCC Color List Page R]}}. However, it is widely considered hard to standardize, and the same vary name could be applied to various tones; russet often has no more specific meaning than ruddy or reddish.

The name of this color derives from russet, a coarse cloth made of wool and dyed with woad and madder to give it a subdued grey or reddish-brown shade. By the statute of 1363, poor English people were required to wear russet.{{cite book|title=Growth and decline in Colchester, 1300–1525|last=Britnell|first=Richard H.|author-link=Richard Britnell|pages=55–77|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1986|isbn=0-521-30572-1|url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/growthdeclineinc0000brit/page/55}}{{Cite book|title=The Secret Lives of Colour|last=St Clair|first=Kassia|publisher=John Murray|year=2016|isbn=978-1-4736-3081-9|location=London|pages=246–247|oclc=936144129}}

Russet, a color of autumn, is often associated with sorrow or grave seriousness. Anticipating a lifetime of regret, Shakespeare's character Biron says in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene 1: "Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd / In russet yeas and honest kersey noes."

Russet is mentioned in a famous quote taken from a letter Oliver Cromwell wrote to Sir William Spring in September 1643: "I had rather have a plain, russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, [than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else]".{{cite book|last=Partington|first=Angela|title=Oxford Dictionary of Quotations|edition=2|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1970|page=167|isbn=0-19-211523-5|oclc=239676679}} Cites Carlyle, Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell.