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Archive 1

Proposed merge

I don't think it's useful to disambiguate Azure (color) from the use of Azure as a tincture. Tincture is merely a specific application of color, and could easily be discussed in all its intricacy in the same article. Please discuss at Talk:Azure. --Dystopos 19:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Shades of...

See discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Color#Shades_of..._Subsections. PaleAqua 21:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Azure in human culture

Is it just me or that entire section almost entirely devoid of encyclopedic content. We can hardly start listing all the things in which "azure" has been mentioned, and even if we did, I'm not sure that starting with computer games reflects very well on the seriousness of the project. --Dystopos 03:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreeing with this sentiment, the whole thing just seems completely out of place. None of it is important, notable or encyclopedic. Not to mention none of it is cited. I'm nuking it; if anyone can argue for it, please try, but I can't imagine anyone winning such an argument. If any other "color" pages have such things, then... why? I hope they don't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.84.89.90 (talk) 01:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

United Nations Azure

Shouldn't the flag shown in the UN's own article about the United Nations flag be regarded as definitive, rather than that from the Open Clip Art website? The UN image has a blue with RGB values (57, 123, 206), rather than (91, 146, 229) shown here. To confuse things even more, the official UN color is PMS 279 which is equated elsewhere to different RGB triplets! --Ant 06:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

  • RGB values for video display and CMYK values for printing cannot be equated. Numerous schema are utilized, depending on the display and printing technologies in use. The term is hundreds of years old and not protected by trade mark. Therefore there is no organization responsible for the definitive last word on what is the most azure of azures. The term can only be defined precisely within a limited system, such as HTML. Note that the cited source for the background on the UN flag does not refer to "azure", but to "light blue". --Dystopos 23:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Is there any reliable source that the UN flag color is called United Nations azure? UN flag documents seem to consistently refer to it as United Nations blue. Google has 16,300 results for "united nations blue" and maybe half a dozen for "united nations azure" if you don't count Wikipedia, other wikimedia-related sites, and direct derivatives of Wikipedia articles. Those seem to be blogs, rather than reliable sources, and may have picked the term up from Wikipedia. "United Nations azure" isn't found in news.google.com, books.google.com, or scholar.google.com, while "united nations blue" is fairly common (although it's not always referring to the color; it might say "the united nations 'blue book'".) -Agyle 05:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Good catch. I say take it out, as none of these hits have anything to do with the official UN color. If it's actually called that, someone with a source can come add it back. --jacobolus (t) 05:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No move - See Talk:Azure for further explanation of the closure. - jc37 17:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Azure (color) → Azure — For logical progression of concept — ENeville 15:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

This move would also require moving azure → azure (tincture) (or a similar modified name). The proposed structure would reflect the most logical progression of concept, with information on the color (generally) found at azure, and the article on the heraldic tincture available as more specific information. Currently, azure directs to the article on the tincture, even though such information is clearly a subset of information on the color generally. (Note: there has been debate on whether the tincture article should be separate from the article on the color generally, and this move can be implemented independently of that decision). ENeville 15:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

On further investigation, it would seem the appropriate namespace for the tincture article would be azure (heraldry) (comparable to sable (heraldry), or (heraldry), and tincture (heraldry).) ENeville 15:47, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
It is not "clearly a subset of the color". Quite the contrary, heraldic azure is a broad spectrum of shades of blue while modern "azure" (color) is a narrow and specific use. The color article is secondary, since the original use of this term in English is for the heraldic sense. It has only secondarily and more recently been applied to a particular shade. The heraldic sense and specific modern color should stay where they are. The sinlge reason given for the move is invalid. --EncycloPetey 21:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I do not agree with your reasoning. In fact, I think you have it exactly backwards. The heraldic meaning is specific and is derived entirely from the wider definition of azure as "blue". Azure itself is only a "narrow and specific" term within certain color systems, among which heraldry is but one. Heraldic azure is NOT "a broad spectrum of shades of blue", it is one single tincture. One reaches outside of heraldry and into the broader and unsystematic milieu of "color" to obtain a shade by which to represent azure when illustrating a coat-of-arms. (Or, to put it another way, if one is describing a coat-of-arms, it would be irregular to specify "pale azure" or "greenish azure"). Narrow senses of "azure", whether in heraldry, HTML specifications, or any other system, are secondary to the broader meaning of "blue" or "sky blue". --Dystopos 22:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
You are mistaken about heraldic azure. Brault (Early Blazon) documents the use of azure as a tincture in the earliest heraldic texts in Anglo-Norman French of the 12th and 13th centuries. It is not a specific shade of blue but describes any shade of blue in early heraldry, and only recently has bleu celeste or any other shade of blue been distinguished from traditional azure. Heraldic authors before Victorian times made no distinction between various shades of azure; if you have evidence to the contrary I would be very interested to hear about it, since I have been doing extensive research in heraldic treatises on the description and rendering of tinctures. In the early documents I have been sifting through, no qualifier is ever used to describe azure as "light", "drak", "green" or otherwise. So, using the sort of descriptions you describe would be highly irregular, as a browse through Papworth's Armorial will attest. The "color" azure, by contast is defined as the blue color of the sky, and so is not as broad a range of colors, as it is synonymous with the heraldic bleu celeste (literally "sky blue"). --EncycloPetey 02:47, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems we agree on the facts, but diverge on the point. My point is that heraldic "azure" is a specific and limited understanding of the generic color "azure". Therefore the description of the heraldic use should be either a subsection of, or a disambiguation from, the broader, more generic term. Heralds had no need to distinguish between different shades of blue because the differences between shades simply did not matter in their field. That does not mean that azure was a broad concept to heralds. It was a very singular concept within their practice, admitting of no meaningful variation or subdivision. Meanwhile the "color" azure has always been far more generic -- sometimes indicating the deepest blue of the sky and other times the color of lapis lazuli stones, but generally nothing more specific than "blue". Prior to the cultural need to distinguish between shades of blue (among, say, 14th century panel painters who had a choice between cobalt and aquamarine), no one would be expected to mean anything by "azure" except "blue". Heralds included. --Dystopos 04:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
No, we don't agree. The heraldic azure is a broader range of color values than the "color" azure; as I've said each time I've posted. That means that we disagree about the facts. The use of azure to describe the sky derives from heraldic use, but applies it to a specific use. The heraldic use is more general in its scope, which is the opposite of what you're saying, not the same. --EncycloPetey 05:05, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
The facts on which we agree are those that confirm that no qualifier is used to describe azure in heraldry. The reason for this is that heraldic azure is NOT a broad range of color values. It is a single, precise concept which can be represented in the larger context of "color" by a broad range of color values. Color is the broad, generic, undefined world in which azure can take on many qualities (of Persian stones, of afternoon skies, of eyes, of lakes, greenish, pale, deep, whatever). Heraldry is the narrow, specific practice in which azure is azure and nothing more. --Dystopos 15:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
You continue to make circular (self-contradictory) arguments without references. Your argument is circular in that you argue heraldic azure is a single precise concept because it is a heraldic usage. It is self-contradictory in that you say heraldic azure is "NOT a broad range of color values" but which "which can be represented in the larger context of "color" by a broad range of color values". Those two statements are incompatible. You have yet to provide a single authoritative reference (or in fact any reference) to support any of your claims, as I have done. Heraldic azure is not a specific hue, and if you have evidence to the contrary, I would be very surprised indeed. --EncycloPetey 16:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
You're just missing the whole point, EP. I'm not saying that Heraldic azure is a specific color value in some kind of CMYK colorspace, I'm saying that within (traditional) heraldry there is only one way to describe anything that is blue, and that is the specific tincture "azure". The two statements I made are correct. The references supporting my claim are precisely the ones you use wrongly to support yours. --Dystopos 17:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I think that arguing the heraldic history to support a supremacy of meaning in Wikipedia pedantically misses the point. "Azure" is a word used in the English language, from poetry to biology: regularly outside of a heraldic context. The general interest is in the general use of the term, not the subset that is the heraldic. The heraldic meaning is clearly interesting, useful, and important to describe on Wikipedia. However, with most people not even aware of the heraldic application, it is inescapably confusing to force everybody through the heraldic meaning to reach the broader meaning. Most users of Wikipedia are not referencing Brault when considering the use of "azure". Whether the heraldic specification of color is broader or narrower, the relevence is narrower. ENeville 16:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but there isn't much to say about the general use of the term outside what's already in the blue article (or at least what should be there—that article is pretty terrible at the moment :). ISTM that the heraldic sense should remain at Azure. Indeed, the Azure (color) article could probably be beneficially merged into Azure, but it doesn't make all that much difference either way. --jacobolus (t) 23:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. I can't see that there's anything to say about Azure in heraldry except that it means "blue" (and is designated by horiz. lines, etc), whereas with the more general term "azure" there is much more information to convey about how it has been distinguished from blue and other colors in different contexts -- of which heraldry is but one. --Dystopos 00:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
There is a lot to say about azure in heraldry. Just because you "can't see" that doesn't mean the information doesn't exist. Azure as a color is a word worthy of a lengthy dictionary entry, but as Jacobolus notes, it's just one way to describe blue in everyday use. It might be best just to merge Azure (color) in with the article on Blue. --EncycloPetey 01:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Azure may be just one way to describe [a] blue in everyday use, but "Azure (tincture)" isn't even a description. It means nothing more than "blue", and only then in a very limited use. May as well make two (on a die) the parent article for two (number). --Dystopos 04:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Leave it as it is. Both uses of azure are narrow and obscure, but the heraldric one currently owns the location azure and there's no logical reason to evict it. The color article has little reason to exist, as far as I can tell (it's another name for blue and would comfortably be covered in that article), but if it's going to have its own article, then azure (color) is a fine place for it. Dicklyon 05:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Principle of least astonishment

Interesting discussion above but don't forget WP:DAB: "Ask yourself: When a reader enters a given term in the Wikipedia search box and pushes 'Go', what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result? ". This (the principle of least astonishment) would seem to favour the colour. — AjaxSmack 18:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree that it's obvious that people searching for azure are looking for info on the generic color name. What would motivate such a search? It's more clear why people would be looking for azure the color class in heraldry. So the question is OK, but if don't agree on the answer then we should leave it alone. Dicklyon 20:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
  • The supposition that people would more likely look for the technical heraldic meaning baffles me. Azure is a well-known term for a shade of blue and a little-known term for a heraldic tincture. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, College Edition, gives three meanings: "1. adj. of a sky-blue color. 2. n. the blue of a clear or unclouded sky. 3. Literary. a clear, unclouded sky." --Dystopos 21:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not making a supposition, just challenging the one stated above. Dicklyon 21:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Dystopos, if the subject is well-known, then people won't be looking it up! The Random House Dictionary (college edition) is not an authority on the matter, nor have I found it very useful as a dictionary. --EncycloPetey 22:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
An encyclopedia should introduce and describe a subject without presuming that people would already know all about it. The supposition I am challenging is that the use of azure to describe a color is more obscure than its use to specify a color in the practice of heraldry. That's simply, clearly, and overwhelmingly not the case. The RH dictionary is a standard reference work, and it is in that capacity that I cited it to make the above point. If you prefer the Oxford English Dictionary, it gives a full column of explanation summarized thus:
1. (n.) The precious stone lapis lazuli. (Chaucer c. 1374 "A broche of golde and asure". Sandys c1614 "Richly gilded, and adorned with Azure, and Mosaicke workmanship.")
2. A bright blue pigment or dye, a fabric dyed of this colour. (Arnold 1502 "Make an hole in a tree.. doo in ye hold good asure of almayne..and the frute shalbe blew colour." Pliny 1601 "Caeruleum or Azur, is a certaine sandy grit or pouder.")
3. Her. The blue colour in coats of arms, represented in engraving by horizontal lines. (Gwillim 1619 "Blew..in Blazon is termed Azure")
4. The clear blue colour of the unclouded sky, or of the sea reflecting it. (Originally, the deep intense blue of more southern latitudes) (Pope 1725 "Celestial azure brightening in her eyes." Byron 1823 "The vast and sullen swell of ocean's alpine azure")
5. The unclouded vault of heaven. (Palgrave 1871 "Above, the crystal azure, perfect, pale.")
1. (adj.) Her. Blue. (Tennyson 1859 "Sir Lancelot's azure lions, crowned with gold.")
2. Coloured like the unclouded sky; orig. of a deep intense blue, now usually of a soft clear bright blue, as is the sky of our more northern latitudes; cerulean. (Dunbar 1505 "The hevinly aisur skyis licht.", Shakespeare 1593 "Her azure veins, her alabaster skin.") b. Use, like L. ceruleus, as an epithet of sea- and river-dieties and things belonging to them. (Pope 1725 "An azure sister of the main.")
3. fig. Like the unclouded sky; clear, cloudless (Brewster 1841 "Those azure moments when the clouds broke from his mind.") b. transf. in Jewellery" (Emmanuel 1865 "Sometimes..stones, which are set open, or, to use the technical term, 'azur', have the interior of the setting enamelled or painted to throw a tint of color into the gem.") c. comb. as azure-bice, -blue, -circled, -coloured, -eyed, -veined, -spar, -stone. (Coleman 1862 "The pretty Azure-blue butterfly.")
1. (v.) To paint, dye or colour azure of bright blue. Hence Azuring. (Montague 1656 "We azure wainscots, paint images, guild swords."). --Dystopos 01:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Quite simply, you are confusing the function of an encyclopedia with that of a dictionary. A dictionary concerns itself with all the various senses in which a word may be used, but an encyclopedia is concerned about all the various ideas, not about each and every word and sense used to express those ideas. So, we might have a single article on blue which dealt with the various ways in which blue is expressed in English, but we would not need an article on Azure (gemstone), Azure (pigment), Azure (vault of heaven), etc. That is not the way an encyclopedia works.
And while you've done a lovely job of typing in lots of definitions, there is nothing in the data you've presented that supports your assertion. Your asserion is about the relative frequency of use of two senses; your data is simply a list of possible uses without any frequency data. Unless you can provide some solid reasoning, I don't see any reason to prolong this discussion. --EncycloPetey 01:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I, for one, was looking up "azure" on Wikipedia to learn about it as a color generally. Having heard "azure" used to refer to various blues in the course of things, I was in some moment of reflection on the ambiguity when I thought I'd expand my knowledge on the matter, hoping to find examples and perhaps some history on applications. That was my reason for looking up the generic color name, a reason I think typical for looking up a topic in an encyclopedia.
Regarding least astonishment, I think that an important issue to consider, in addition to what topics people might expect, is the level of conceptual specificity people would anticipate. If I were interested in the tincture and searched for "azure", I would anticipate finding first information on the color generally, and would then actually be careful to make sure that the information I sought on the tincture was distinguished from the generic information. The same would be true for meanings specific to the color wheel, Pantone, or hex triplets. As it was, after searching with the generic term, I found myself temporarily confused to realize that I was reading a page constrained to heraldry. ENeville 03:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, the principle is worth considering; and it has been considered, and we don't have a consensus that it compells a change in this case. Dicklyon 04:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, but if you're looking for the definition of the color “Azure”, you'd be better served by a dictionary + the article about Blue. (and maybe a clear sky overhead to see the color first-hand) --jacobolus (t) 06:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

History

Note: Azure had been a disambiguation page, with the first entry linking the already existing azure (color) article, when it was moved to azure (disambiguation) and replaced with a newly created heraldic azure article: move, replacement. This move was (as far as I can see) executed without discussion. ENeville 21:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting; but it was two years ago, so not very relevant to the current question. Dicklyon 21:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
And the move was in accordance with disambiguation policies at the time. Policies change. Also, if you go back to before the entry was made into a disambiguation page, you'll see it was originally a statement about heraldry [1], then a redirect to Heraldry [2], all before it was a disambiguation page. --EncycloPetey 00:24, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems notable to me that the most vociferous advocate for keeping the heraldic meaning at azure (and exclusively the heraldic meaning), EncycloPetey, is the same editor who made that move. I would be interested in hearing how unilaterally replacing a disambiguation page with an article on the meaning listed third on that disambiguation page was in accordance with policies then.
As to azure being first a single sentence on heraldry and then a redirect, those were the first two edits ever on the page, in the days of Wikipedia's general nascence, after which it became a disambiguation page. The version of azure that was moved had come to represent the input of many editors.
Regarding currency, I think the manner of the move in this case is relevant (and perhaps also the dispersal of revision histories across various articles). The status quo is naturally assumed to represent tacit consensus, but I don't think that most editors imagined that such a change lay in the history of organization of the "azure" articles, as they added their changes to one article or another. I had no idea until I investigated. I think this move history is worth considering. ENeville 17:05, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

First recorded use as a color name

The article currently says "The first recorded use of azure as a color name in English was in 1374.[1]", citing a reference of "Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 190". The Oxford English Dictionary online said that the Chaucer's 1374 references referred in one case to the stone "lapis lazuli," and in another to fabric dyed with a pigment called azure. It lists the first use meaning just a color as being in 1481, and even then it's a bit of a subjective call, but I don't think the 1374 reference should be cited. Here's some of the OED text (it's a subscription service) for the noun form:

1. The precious stone lapis lazuli. c1325 E.E. Allit. P. B. 1411 Al in asure & ynde enaumayld. Ibid. 1457 Bassynes ful bry{ygh}t of brende golde clere, Enaumaylde with azer. c1374 CHAUCER Troylus III. 1321 A broche of golde and asure. c1435 Torr. Portugal 351 Ther gold and sylvyr wase spred, And asur that wase blewe. 1509 BARCLAY Ship of Fooles (1570) 169 This tombe was..set with precious stone, Alayde with asour. 1615 G. SANDYS Trav. 65 Richly gilded, and adorned with Azure, and Mosaicke workmanship. 1783 W. F. MARTYN Geog. Mag. I. 131 About Tauris, the mineral azure is also found.

2. A bright blue pigment or dye; ellipt. a fabric dyed of this colour. a. of Almayne: ? Prussian blue. (Ultramarine is made from powdered lapis lazuli.) c1374 CHAUCER Anel. & Arc. 330 Youre figure Before me stante Cloothed in Asure. 1430 LYDG. Chron. Troy I. ii, And gan forthwith with golde and asure paint. 1502 ARNOLD Chron. 169 Make an hole in a tree..doo in ye hole good asure of almayne..and the frute shalbe blew colour. 1552 Act 5-6 Edw. VI, vi. §11 All broad Plunkets, Azures, Blewes and other coloured Cloth. 1601 HOLLAND Pliny II. 484 Cæruleum or Azur, is a certaine sandy grit or pouder. 1875 URE Dict. Arts I. 874 The darkest-coloured smalts, known as King's-blue or azure.

3. Her. The blue colour in coats of arms, represented in engraving by horizontal lines. a1330 Sire Degarré 995 With the scheld of asur, And thre bor heuedes ther in. 1429 Pol. Poems (1859) II. 142 Thre flour-de-lys of gold, The fielde of asure. 1610 J. GUILLIM Heraldry I. iii. (1660) 19 Blew..in Blazon is termed Azure. 1751 CHAMBERS Cycl., Azure..signifies the blue colour in the coats of arms of all persons under the degree of a baron. 1838 Penny Cycl. XII 143/2.

4. The clear blue colour of the unclouded sky, or of the sea reflecting it. (Originally, the deep intense blue of more southern latitudes.) 1481 CAXTON Myrr. II. viii. 81 The colour of Asure lyke unto the heuen whan it is pure and clere. 1656 COWLEY Davideis II. Wks. I. 354 He cuts out a Silk Mantle from the Skies, Where the most sprightly Azure pleas'd the Eyes. 1725 POPE Odyss. I. 408 Celestial azure brightning in her eyes. 1823 BYRON Island III. iii, The vast and sullen swell Of ocean's alpine azure.

5. a. The unclouded vault of heaven. 1667 MILTON P.L. I. 297 Not like those steps On Heavens Azure. 1738 GLOVER Leonidas III. 14 Mingling its majestic front With heav'ns bright azure. 1871 PALGRAVE Lyr. Poems 10 Above, the crystal azure, perfect, pale. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Agyle (talk • contribs) 11:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Azure in pokemon

Should the pokemon "azurmaril" and "azurl" be under video games? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.23.168.19 (talk) 22:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Web color

Is the "Azure (web color)" listed on the page for real? #F0FFFF is practically white; it's almost invisible against the white background, and looks nothing like any of the other shades. Surely, there's been a mistake, no? LordAmeth (talk) 21:07, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Completely agree I think someone got this wrong and have hi-lighted your text in this colour. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.176.105.7 (talk) 14:53, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

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