Grim Grey
#e3dcd6
A neutral that has no useful hue — it reads as a grey. It is very light — it works as a page background, not as text.
Hex
#e3dcd6
RGB
227, 220, 214
OKLCh
89.8% 0.011 63.3°
CIELAB (D50)
88.2, 1.7, 3.8
What is true of this colour, and of no other
- 76 other named colours sit within ΔE00 2 of it — this part of the space is crowded, and the names here are finer distinctions than most people make.
- It uses only 16% of the chroma available at this lightness and hue — there is a far more vivid version of this colour inside sRGB.
- As text on white it measures APCA Lc 17.5; on black, Lc -86.1. The sign is the polarity, which the WCAG ratio discards.
- Built into an eleven-step scale, 10 of the 10 adjacent pairs stay ΔE00 2 apart — see the ramp.
- tritanopia shifts it by ΔE00 11.4 — no blue cone.
Text on this colour
White text
1.36:1 — fails AA
Black text
15.47:1 — passes AA
Black text is the better of the two at15.47:1. That is enough for body text.
As text on white, it needs to change
#7c7670 is the nearest colour of the same hue that passes AA on white, at 4.50:1. Only the lightness moved.
The same colour, with one cone missing
As you see it
#e3dcd6
protanopia
#ddddd6 · ΔE00 3.8
deuteranopia
#deded6 · ΔE00 4.0
tritanopia
#dfdfbe · ΔE00 11.4
The twelve nearest named colours
Ranked by CIEDE2000 — perceptual distance, not hex arithmetic. The closest isCrushed Peony at ΔE00 0.545: below 1.0 — an ordinary observer cannot tell these apart, even side by side. What the numbers mean.
- Crushed PeonyΔE00 0.545 · #e4ddd8
- Hint of MauveΔE00 0.567 · #e1dbd5
- Marble QuarryΔE00 0.599 · #e2dcd7
- Gauzy WhiteΔE00 0.616 · #e3dbd4
- Pale StarletΔE00 0.64 · #e4ded8
- Everyday WhiteΔE00 0.942 · #e4dcd4
- Cultured PearlΔE00 0.968 · #e5dcd6
- PatienceΔE00 1.001 · #e6ddd6
- Humble BeginningsΔE00 1.028 · #e3dad3
- Simple WhiteΔE00 1.08 · #dfd9d2
- White WoodruffΔE00 1.08 · #ded8d2
- Angel’s SighΔE00 1.13 · #e2d9d3
11 of these have no page of their own: pages exist for the 4,961 colours the dataset marks as good names.