purple
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpɜː.pl̩/
ipa: /ˈpɝ.pl̩/
ipa: [ˈpɹ̩.pl̩]
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)pəl
Forms: form: purpler
form: more purple
form: purplest
form: most purple
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.
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 40:
synonyms: word: purpureal
glosses: Of a purple hue.
examples: text: purple state
text: purple city
text: 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.
ref: 2010, Hal K. Rothman, The Making of Modern Nevada, University of Nevada Press, →ISBN, page 162:
text: 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.
ref: 2011 May 7, Margalit Fox, “Lanny Friedlander, Founder of Reason Magazine, Dies at 63”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
text: 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.
ref: 2023 May 4, Frank Bruni, “Republicans Are Running Wild in My State”, in The New York Times:
topics: government
politics
glosses: Not predominantly red or blue, but having a mixture of Democrat and Republican support.
glosses: Mixed between social democrats and liberals.
raw_tags: in Netherlands and Belgium
examples: text: Grovel on the earth: aye, hide / In the dust thy purple pride!
ref: 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:
glosses: Imperial; regal.
examples: text: O may ſuch purple teares be alway ſhed
ref: 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:
text: Wars, horrid Wars I view; a field of Blood; / And Tyber rolling with a Purple Flood.
ref: 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:
glosses: Blood-red; bloody.
examples: text: Near-synonyms: flowery, overwrought
text: 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.
ref: 1979 August 4, Rob Schmieder, “Anything a Man Does”, in Gay Community News, page 15:
glosses: Extravagantly ornate, like purple prose.
raw_tags: of language
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
motor-racing
racing
sports
qualifier: lap
glosses: Completed in the fastest time so far in a given session.
raw_tags: of a sector