The expression rāgavirāga plays on two senses of the word. The root sense of rāga is “dye” or “color”, especially red (cf. rajaka, MN 56:27.14) . From there it took on the sense “greed, lust, passion” which dominates in Pali. Thus rāgavirāga is both the “fading of color” and the “dispassion of passion”. It is a term for the quelling of harmful emotions (AN 2.31).