purple
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpɜː.pl̩/
ipa: /ˈpɝ.pl̩/
ipa: [ˈpɹ̩.pl̩]
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)pəl
Forms: form: purples
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: Arraying with reflected Purple and Gold / The Clouds that on his Weſtern Throne attend.
ref: 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:
synonyms: blue-red
glosses: A colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta.
qualifier: colour theory
glosses: Any non-spectral colour on the line of purples on a colour chromaticity diagram or a colour wheel between violet and red.
examples: text: to put on the imperial purple
text: Thy head as Carmelus: and the heares of thy head as a kings purple tyed to cundite pipes.
ref: 1610, The Second Tome of the Holie Bible, […] (Douay–Rheims Bible), Doway: Lavrence Kellam, […], →OCLC, Canticle of Canticles 7:5, page 341:
glosses: 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.
examples: text: 1776-1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
He was born in the purple.
text: 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—[…]
ref: 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:
text: The immediate successors of Augustus indulged in appalling cruelties towards senators and towards possible competitors for the purple.
ref: 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.29:
glosses: Imperial power.
glosses: Any of various species of mollusks from which Tyrian purple dye was obtained, especially the common dog whelk.
examples: text: "Sure, some purple Owlsley."
ref: 2005, Tipi Paul, Wanna Smoke?: The Adventures of a Storyteller, page 14:
text: “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.
ref: 2010, Mark Arax, West of the West, page 221:
text: She preferred to smoke some good purple, but getting high wasn't an option.
ref: 2011, Danielle Santiago, Allure of the Game, page 148:
glosses: The purple haze cultivar of cannabis in the kush family, either pure or mixed with others, or by extension any variety of smoked marijuana.
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: Purpura.
glosses: Earcockle, a disease of wheat.
examples: text: the banded purple
glosses: Any of the species of large butterflies, usually marked with purple or blue, of the genus Basilarchia (formerly Limenitis).
glosses: A cardinalate.
examples: text: Fishtailing out the parking lot leaving Magic / Sipping on the purple and the yellow, drinking magic
ref: 2012, “Magic”, in Pluto, performed by Future ft. T.I.:
glosses: Ellipsis of purple drank.
glosses: Synonym of snakebite and black.
synonyms: word: snakebite and black