In literature, the color slate blue is often deployed to evoke a cool, enigmatic, and sometimes melancholic atmosphere. It appears in descriptions of human features—such as in portrayals where eyes are noted as "slate blue" to suggest depth or mystery [1, 2, 3]—and extends to the natural world, where landscapes and seascapes adopt a dark, somber hue, as seen in the depiction of a brooding ocean or an eastern horizon rapidly darkening into slate blue [4, 5, 6]. Slate blue is also used to characterize animals and objects, from the soft plumage of a bird shading into blue-black [7] to the painted serenity of a room trimmed in cream [8]. Even in a catalog of hues or during descriptions of seasonal metamorphoses—as a larva shifting from yellowish-brown to slate blue when engorged—the color offers an evocative, versatile quality that enriches the literary tapestry [9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14].
- Magnificent eyes—slate blue, with thick, velvety black lashes.
— from The Drums of Jeopardy by Harold MacGrath
- “Because your eyes are slate blue like your mother's.
— from The Drums of Jeopardy by Harold MacGrath
- I noticed for the first time that his eyes were slate blue, with funny birds' foot wrinkles at the corners.
— from Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley
- The ocean was a dark, slate blue.
— from Creatures of the Abyss by Murray Leinster
- Carroll saw the lake, slate blue and angry, with white-capped billows to the limit of vision.
— from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White
- Above it pulsed and banded a tumult of smoke gray clouds; the eastern horizon was a slate blue, rapidly darkening.
— from Mountain: A Novel by Clement Wood
- It is a slate blue bird shading into blue-black on the neck and back.
— from A Critique of the Theory of Evolution by Thomas Hunt Morgan
- The room is sixteen by eighteen feet, painted a light slate blue with white or cream trim.
— from Seaport in Virginia
George Washington's Alexandria by Gay Montague Moore
- The nymph when unengorged reddish-brown, when gorged dark bluish-grey; the larva is yellowish-brown when unengorged, slate blue when engorged.
— from The Animal Parasites of Man by Fred. V. (Frederick Vincent) Theobald
- Its general colour is black, or slate blue, though a few of the small feathers round the neck, and on part of the body, are white.
— from Bertha's Visit to Her Uncle in England; vol. 3 [of 3] by Mrs. (Jane Haldimand) Marcet
- The adult male, which is much smaller than the female, is slate blue on the upper parts, with rufous on the cheeks and ear coverts.
— from Birds of Britain by J. Lewis (John Lewis) Bonhote
- Coloration: face yellow with blue bands encircling the eyes; hood red on top, yellow underneath; belly yellow; body a dirty slate blue; legs same.
— from Tarzan the Terrible by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- We find, for instance, some forms of Florentine decoration, full of yellow, red-yellow, blue-greens and light slate blues.
— from Color Value by C. R. (Chandler Robbins) Clifford
- Three more dogs, one white, one slate blue and one pink, hurried up and tried to climb aboard.
— from Time In the Round by Fritz Leiber