# purple
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English purple, purpel, from Old English purpul (“purple”, adjective), taken from Old English purpure (“purple colour”, noun), from Latin purpura (“purple dye, shellfish”), from Ancient Greek πορφύρα (porphúra, “purple-fish”), perhaps of Semitic origin. Doublet of purpura and purpure. The sense of "imperial power" is from the wearing of the color purple by emperors and kings.

### Pronunciation

* (UK) IPA: /ˈpɜː(ɹ).pəl/
* (General American) IPA: /ˈpɝ.pəl/
** (US) IPA: [ˈpɹ.pl]
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)pəl

### Noun

purple (plural purples)
* A colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta.
    web color:
    Synonym: blue-red
** 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 596–597:Arraying with reflected Purple and Gold / The Clouds that on his Weſtern Throne attend.
* (colour theory) Any non-spectral colour on the line of purples on a colour chromaticity diagram or a colour wheel between violet and red.
* Cloth, or a garment, dyed a purple colour; especially, a purple robe, worn as an emblem of rank or authority; specifically, the purple robe or mantle worn by Ancient Roman emperors as the emblem of imperial dignity.
    to put on the imperial purple
** 1610, The Second Tome of the Holie Bible, […] (Douay–Rheims Bible), Doway: Lavrence Kellam, […], →OCLC, Canticle of Canticles 7:5, page 341:Thy head as Carmelus: and the heares of thy head as a kings purple tyed to cundite pipes.
* (by extension) Imperial power.
** 1776-1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
    He was born in the purple.
** 1829 March, “Napoleon a Sainte Helene. Opinion d’un Medecin sur la Maladie de l’Empereur Napoleon, et sur la Cause de sa Mort; offerte a son Fils, au Jour de sa Majorite. Par S. Hereau, […]”, in James Johnson, editor, The Medico-Chirurgical Review, and Journal of Practical Medicine, volume X, number XX, London: […] S. Highley, […], page 434:When we picture to ourselves his [Napoleon’s] dawning military genius at Toulon—his daring and decided politics in the storms of the Revolution—his Cæsarian ambition in assuming the purple—[…]
** 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.29:The immediate successors of Augustus indulged in appalling cruelties towards senators and towards possible competitors for the purple.
* Any of various species of mollusks from which Tyrian purple dye was obtained, especially the common dog whelk.
* The purple haze cultivar of cannabis in the kush family, either pure or mixed with others, or by extension any variety of smoked marijuana.
** 2005, Tipi Paul, Wanna Smoke?: The Adventures of a Storyteller, page 14:"Sure, some purple Owlsley."
** 2010, Mark Arax, West of the West, page 221:“Purple smoke is no joke. Especially when it is real purple. The smell, taste, and high is easily one of the best in the world. One bowl of some purple Kush, and I'm done for a couple of hours.
** 2011, Danielle Santiago, Allure of the Game, page 148:She preferred to smoke some good purple, but getting high wasn't an option.
* (medicine) Purpura.
* Earcockle, a disease of wheat.
* Any of the species of large butterflies, usually marked with purple or blue, of the genus Basilarchia (formerly Limenitis).
    the banded purple
* A cardinalate.
* (slang, US) Ellipsis of purple drank.
** 2012, “Magic”, in Pluto, performed by Future ft. T.I.:Fishtailing out the parking lot leaving Magic / Sipping on the purple and the yellow, drinking magic
* (UK, slang) Synonym of snakebite and black.

#### Translations
### Adjective

purple (comparative purpler or more purple, superlative purplest or most purple)
* Of a purple hue.
    Synonym: (literary, poetic) purpureal
** 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 40:So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
* (US politics) Not predominantly red or blue, but having a mixture of Democrat and Republican support.
    purple state
    purple city
** 2010, Hal K. Rothman, The Making of Modern Nevada, University of Nevada Press, →ISBN, page 162:In the end, Nevada remained the quintessential purple state. On the maps that television used to illustrate political trends, Republican states were red and Democratic blue. Nevada blended the colors. It had a bright blue core in the heart of Las Vegas, surrounded by a purple suburban belt. Most of the rest of the state was bright red, especially in the rural counties.
** 2011 May 7, Margalit Fox, “Lanny Friedlander, Founder of Reason Magazine, Dies at 63”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:As Mr. Friedlander conceived it, Reason was neither strictly right-wing libertarian nor strictly left — in modern parlance, neither red nor blue but a purple amalgam of the two.
** 2023 May 4, Frank Bruni, “Republicans Are Running Wild in My State”, in The New York Times‎:Political colorists can be promiscuous in calling states purple, but my state is true to that hue. I speak of North Carolina, and I have receipts: While our junior senator, Ted Budd, is a Republican who won election to a first term in 2022 by about three percentage points, our governor, Roy Cooper, is a Democrat who won election to a second term in 2020 by more than four.
* (in Netherlands and Belgium) Mixed between social democrats and liberals.
* Imperial; regal.
** 1818 October, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Lines Written among the Euganean Hills, October, 1818”, in Rosalind and Helen, a Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems, London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier, […], published 1819, →OCLC, page 82:Grovel on the earth: aye, hide / In the dust thy purple pride!
* Blood-red; bloody.
** c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene vi], page 171, column 2:O may ſuch purple teares be alway ſhed
** 1697, Virgil, “The Sixth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 366, lines 133–134:Wars, horrid Wars I view; a field of Blood; / And Tyber rolling with a Purple Flood.
* (of language) Extravagantly ornate, like purple prose.
** 1979 August 4, Rob Schmieder, “Anything a Man Does”, in Gay Community News, page 15:A writer who has made a career of churning out thick novels may be expected to write too quickly to notice that patches of her writing are unbearably purple.
* (motor racing, of a sector, lap, etc.) Completed in the fastest time so far in a given session.

#### Antonyms

* (antonym(s) of “having purple as its colour”): nonpurple

#### Translations
### Verb

purple (third-person singular simple present purples, present participle purpling, simple past and past participle purpled)
* (intransitive) To turn purple in colour.
** 1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 143:[T]he Capri cliffs, the tops of which were still pink against the purpling sky.
** 1999, David Edelstein, In Nomine: Corporeal Player's Guide, Steve Jackson Games,, →ISBN, page 8:The gang leader purpled and raised his gun.
* (transitive) To dye purple.
** 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Day-Dream. The Sleeping Palace.”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 152:Year after year unto her feet, / She lying on her couch alone, / Across the purpled coverlet, / The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, […]
* (transitive) To clothe in purple.
* (intransitive, US slang) To pursue the opposite gender in inappropriate circumstances, usually of adolescents. (From the metaphor of mixing blue [boys] and pink [girls].)

### Derived terms

* American purple gallinule (Porphyrio martinicus)
* aniline purple
* bee purple
* bepurple
* born in the purple
* born to the purple
* bromcresol purple
* bromocresol purple
* Chinese purple
* common purple-glossed snake
* flying purple people eater
* flying purple people-eater
* French purple
* Han purple
* line of purples
* liseran purple
* Okinawan purple potato
* once in a purple moon
* palatinate purple
* Perkin's purple
* purple airway
* purple-backed fairywren
* purple-backed sunbeam (Aglaeactis aliciae)
* purple-backed thornbill (Ramphomicron microrhynchum)
* purple bacteria
* purple-banded sunbird (Cinnyris bifasciatus)
* purple-bearded bee-eater, Celebes bee-eater (Meropogon forsteni)
* purple-bellied lory (Lorius hypoinochrous)
* purple bird
* purple box
* purple-breasted cotinga (Cotinga cotinga)
* purple-breasted sunbird (Nectarinia purpureiventris)
* purple-capped fruit dove (Ptilinopus ponapensis)
* purple cochoa (Cochoa purpurea)
* purple copper ore
* purple coral
* purple-crested turaco (Tauraco porphyreolophus)
* purple-crowned fairy (Heliothryx barroti)
* purple-crowned fairywren
* purple-crowned fairy-wren (Malurus coronatus)
* purple death
* purple dye murex
* purple emperor
* purple everlasting
* purple finch (Haemorhous purpureus)
* purple-fish
* purple gallinule (Porphyrio porphyrio)
* purple-gaped honeyeater (Lichenostomus cratitius)
* purple gas
* purple-glossed snake
* purple glossy starling (Lamprotornis purpureus)
* purple gold
* purple grackle
* purple guava
* purple hairstreak
* Purple Hawke
* purple-headed starling (Hylopsar purpureiceps)
* purple-headed yogurt slinger
* Purple Heart
* purple heart
* purpleheart (Peltogyne)
* purple helmet
* purple heron (Ardea purpurea)
* purple honeycreeper (Cyanerpes caeruleus)
* purple indigobird (Vidua purpurascens)
* purple ivory
* purple Jesus
* purple judge
* purple lettuce (Prenanthes purpurea)
* purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria)
* Purpleman
* purple marshlocks
* purple martin (Progne subis)
* purple milkweed
* purple monkey dishwasher
* purple-naped lory (Lorius domicella)
* purple-naped sunbird (Hypogramma hypogrammicum)
* purple nasty
* purple needletail (Hirundapus celebensis)
* purple noise
* purple notice
* purple nurple
* purple of Cassius
* purple of mollusca
* purple passage
* purple passion
* purple patch
* purple pill
* purple pitcher plant
* purple plague
* purple prose
* purple quartz
* purple rice
* purple roller (Coracias naevius)
* purple roller (Eurystomus azureus)
* purple-rumped sunbird (Leptocoma zeylonica)
* purple sandpiper (Calidris maritima)
* purple shell
* purple shirt of sex
* purple spurge
* purple squirrel
* purple starling (Lamprotornis purpureus)
* purple state
* purple storm snail
* purple sulfur bacterium
* purple sunbird (Cinnyris asiaticus)
* purple swamphen (Progne subis)
* purple-tailed imperial pigeon (Ducula rufigaster)
* purple team
* purple teamer
* purple three-awn grass
* purple-throated carib (Eulampis jugularis)
* purple-throated cotinga (Porphyrolaema porphyrolaema)
* purple-throated cuckooshrike (Campephaga quiscalina)
* purple-throated fruitcrow (Querula purpurata)
* purple-throated mountaingem (Lampornis calolaemus)
* purple-throated sunangel (Heliangelus viola)
* purple-throated sunbird (Leptocoma sperata)
* purple-throated woodstar (Calliphlox mitchellii)
* purple tooth
* purple triangle
* purple turtle
* purple urine bag syndrome
* purple velvet plant
* purple vetch
* purple-winged ground dove (Claravis geoffroyi)
* purple-winged roller (Coracias temminckii)
* purple wiregrass
* purple yam
* purple zone
* purpureal
* raise to the purple
* Rebecca purple
* red-spotted purple
* regal purple
* retinal purple
* rise to the purple
* royal purple
* Schoenfeld's purple
* slate purple
* take the purple
* Tyrian purple
* velvet-purple coronet (Boissonneaua jardini)
* vision purple
* visual purple

### See also

* porphyrogenite, porphyrogeniture
* purpure
* rhodopsin
* secondary color
Colors/Colours in English (layout · text) :
| red | orange | yellow | green | blue (incl. indigo; cyan, teal, turquoise) | purple / violet |
| pink (including magenta) | brown | | white | gray/grey | black |

### Anagrams

* Ruppel, lupper, pulper, repulp

## Middle English
### Noun

purple (uncountable)
* Alternative form of purpel

### Adjective

purple
* Alternative form of purpel

## Old English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈpur.ple/, [ˈpurˠ.ple]

### Adjective

purple
* inflection of purpul:
** strong accusative feminine singular
** strong instrumental masculine/neuter singular
** strong nominative/accusative masculine/feminine plural
** weak nominative feminine/neuter singular
** weak accusative neuter singular