Vert

:"This article describes the heraldic tincture vert. For other uses, see Vert (disambiguation)."

In heraldry, vert is the name of a tincture roughly equivalent to the colour "green". It is one of the five dark tinctures ("colours"). Vert is portrayed in black and white engravings by lines at a 45 degree angle from upper left to lower right, or indicated by the use of vt. as an abbreviation.

Though the English term comes from the French word "vert" ("green"), in French heraldry this tincture has been referred to as "sinople" since at least 1415. In Old French, and in the earlier texts, "vert" meant "green" while "sinople" was a "red" color named for the mineral paint from which it acquired its name. It is not clear why the meaning of the word changed in French.

The colour vert has been adopted as a symbol of the Muslim faith and is one of the Pan-Arab colors. As a result, many Islamic countries have a national flag containing a green stripe or have a flag with a green background. Vert is also common among the national flags of African countries; green is one of the Pan-African colours. Other countries have used the colour vert in their flags to represent the "greenness" of their lands and abundance of their nation.

The shortest blazon in the English language is "Vert", which is the blazon of the arms of Pupellin and the flag of Libya.

Vert may represent emeralds or Venus (this planet is further associated with the metal copper in traditional alchemical/occultistic lore).

References

*Brault, Gerard J. (1997). "Early Blazon: Heraldic Terminology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries", (2nd ed.). Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-711-4.