purple

[ pur-puhl ]
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noun
  1. any color having components of both red and blue, such as lavender, especially one deep in tone.

  2. cloth or clothing of this hue, especially as formerly worn distinctively by persons of imperial, royal, or other high rank.

  1. the rank or office of a cardinal.

  2. the office of a bishop.

  3. imperial, regal, or princely rank or position.

  4. deep red; crimson.

  5. any of several nymphalid butterflies, as Basilarchia astyanax(red-spotted purple ), having blackish wings spotted with red, or Basilarchia arthemis(banded purple, or white admiral ), having brown wings banded with white.

adjective,pur·pler, pur·plest.
  1. of the color purple.

  2. imperial, regal, or princely.

  1. brilliant or showy.

  2. full of exaggerated literary devices and effects; marked by excessively ornate rhetoric: a purple passage in a novel.

  3. profane or shocking, as language.

  4. relating to or noting political or ideological diversity: purple politics; ideologically purple areas of the country.

verb (used with or without object),pur·pled, pur·pling.
  1. to make or become purple.

Idioms about purple

  1. born in / to the purple, of royal or exalted birth: Those born to the purple are destined to live in the public eye.

Origin of purple

1
First recorded before 1000; Middle English purpel (noun and adjective), Old English purple (adjective), variant of purpure, from Latin purpura “kind of shellfish yielding purple dye, the dye, cloth so dyed,” from Greek porphýra; cf. purpure, porphyry

Other words from purple

  • pur·ple·ness, noun

Words Nearby purple

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use purple in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for purple

purple

/ (ˈpɜːpəl) /


noun
  1. any of various colours with a hue lying between red and blue and often highly saturated; a nonspectral colour

  2. a dye or pigment producing such a colour

  1. cloth of this colour, often used to symbolize royalty or nobility

  2. the purple high rank; nobility

    • the official robe of a cardinal

    • the rank, office, or authority of a cardinal as signified by this

  3. the purple bishops collectively

adjective
  1. of the colour purple

  2. (of writing) excessively elaborate or full of imagery: purple prose

  1. noble or royal

Origin of purple

1
Old English, from Latin purpura purple dye, from Greek porphura the purple fish (Murex)

Derived forms of purple

  • purpleness, noun
  • purplish, adjective
  • purply, adjective

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012