Cyan vs. Teal

Main Difference

The main difference between Cyan and Teal is that the Cyan is a color visible between blue and green; subtractive (CMY) primary color and Teal is a low-saturated color, a bluish-green to dark medium, similar to medium blue-green and dark cyan.

• Cyan

  Cyan ( or ) is a greenish-blue color. It is evoked by light with a predominant wavelength of between 490–520 nm, between the wavelengths of blue and green.

  In the subtractive color system, or CMYK (subtractive), which can be overlaid to produce all colors in paint and color printing, cyan is one of the primary colors, along with magenta, yellow, and black. In the additive color system, or RGB (additive) color model, used to create all the colors on a computer or television display, cyan is made by mixing equal amounts of green and blue light. Cyan is the complement of red; it can be made by the removal of red from white light. Mixing red light and cyan light at the right intensity will make white light.

  The web color cyan is synonymous with aqua. Other colors in the cyan color range are teal, turquoise, electric blue, aquamarine, and others described as blue-green.

• Teal

  Teal is a medium blue-green color, similar to cyan. Its name comes from that of a bird—the common teal (Anas crecca)—which presents a similarly colored stripe on its head.

  It can be created by mixing blue with green into a white base, or deepened as needed with black or gray. The complementary color of teal is maroon. It is also one of the initial group of 16 HTML/CSS web colors formulated in 1987.

  The first recorded use of teal as a color name in English was in 1917. The word is often used colloquially to refer to shades of cyan in general, including the color cyan itself, most notably in computer games, where one of the players is given the colored cyan.

  Teal was a fad color during the 1990s, with, among others, many sports teams adopting the color for their uniforms.

• Cyan (noun)

  a greenish-blue colour which is one of the primary subtractive colours, complementary to red.