purple
Americannoun
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any color having components of both red and blue, such as lavender, especially one deep in tone.
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cloth or clothing of this hue, especially as formerly worn distinctively by persons of imperial, royal, or other high rank.
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the rank or office of a cardinal.
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the office of a bishop.
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imperial, regal, or princely rank or position.
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deep red; crimson.
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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
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of the color purple.
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imperial, regal, or princely.
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brilliant or showy.
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full of exaggerated literary devices and effects; marked by excessively ornate rhetoric.
a purple passage in a novel.
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profane or shocking, as language.
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relating to or noting political or ideological diversity.
purple politics; ideologically purple areas of the country.
verb (used with or without object)
idioms
noun
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any of various colours with a hue lying between red and blue and often highly saturated; a nonspectral colour
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a dye or pigment producing such a colour
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cloth of this colour, often used to symbolize royalty or nobility
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high rank; nobility
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the official robe of a cardinal
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the rank, office, or authority of a cardinal as signified by this
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bishops collectively
adjective
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of the colour purple
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(of writing) excessively elaborate or full of imagery
purple prose
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noble or royal
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of purple
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
Explanation
Purple is a shade that's a mixture of red and blue. If you are eating a grape Popsicle, get ready to spend a while with a purple tongue and lips. The Greek root of purple is porphyra, which was the name of the shellfish from which purple dye was made. Long ago, only royalty could wear — and afford the dye for — purple clothing. If the setting sun purples the sky, the light is making the horizon appear to be colored purple, just as a bruise purples your skin. Purple prose is a literary term that refers to overly flowery or exaggerated writing.
Vocabulary lists containing purple
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Calls are put into categories - purple and red as the most urgent, orange for things like heart attacks and strokes, then yellow and green for lower priority calls.
From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2026
He fumed when a group member suggested printing ‘Stop AI’ on purple shirts rather than red.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
Beard: I was supposed to be wearing purple and she was going to wear green, and we were going to do the Isabella and Lizzie look at the end of “The Lizzie McGuire Movie.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
The service's map of Germany was nearly completely coloured the dark purple that signifies "extreme heat warning".
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
Then, with a flourish, Corrie shook open the cloth and turned it around to display a magnificent crown embroidered in red, purple, and gold.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
And ‘Pose’ is very blue with some purples in there.
From Salon ● Jun. 9, 2026
A palette of soft pinks, purples and blues lend warmth and dimension to Rana’s starkly beautiful home.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
Dancers wear pants and tops, adorned with fringe, in glowing purples and reds that bleed right into Christopher S. Chambers’s moody lighting.
From New York Times ● May 15, 2024
But don’t tell that to the intrepid folks who found places to see the pinks and purples in Southern California.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2024
Night flowers in dark purples and blues sprouted from the vines in the walls and even between the cracks in the wall.
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
The more psalm-like accompaniments outweigh the purpler prose.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 21, 2021
He is swishing and spitting a Châteaneuf-du-Pape purpler than August berries.
From Slate ● May 5, 2012
Named for a mythical sunken city, Ys was a prouder, purpler record than Newsom's debut.
From Slate ● Mar. 1, 2010
It seemed to him that no lobster ever looked redder, no mayonnaise yellower, no pistache ice-cream greener and no huckleberry pie purpler.
From The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon and other humorous tales by Connell, Richard
Purple and grey the horizon walls them round With purpler clouds.
From Sea Poems by Rice, Cale Young
We’re inviting readers to write their own over-the-top ode to the weather: Give us a paragraph about the recent heat wave, in your purplest prose.
From New York Times ● Jul. 26, 2013
It achieved its purplest popularity between 1895 and 1900, was fading fast by 1914.
From Time Magazine Archive
Last fortnight Critic Olin Downes paid Moriz Rosenthal homage in a nostalgic vein with the purplest passage in the modern, if not the entire, history of the New York Times.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was musty, cobwebbed, and encrusted with stalactic nitre, but the spirit of rare old vintages exhaled from its depths, and visionary clusters of purplest grapes dangled in every direction.
From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862 Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various
These receptacles were filled and hidden with the largest, purplest, and most fragrant violets Marise had ever seen, and their amethyst tones, massed against the dark, rose-brown wood, produced an exquisite effect.
From Vision House by Williamson, A. M. (Alice Muriel)
But he came and he was full purpled out.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 1, 2023
Last summer at my local nursery, I was greeted by a single bushy flower: the blooms velvety, thick, purpled and plush.
From New York Times ● Mar. 25, 2022
On Sunday morning, a middle-aged female civil servant walked out of the Sule polling station and flashed her purpled little finger.
From Time ● Nov. 8, 2015
Tumblr, meanwhile, is awash in pretty pictures of purpled nebulas and vintage anatomy diagrams.
From Newsweek ● Feb. 11, 2015
Then it rose redly into the purpled sky, resembling a black eye.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
The greening, or purpling, of Los Angeles also involves these elements, but mostly water.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2022
Peering into the mirror, he hardly recognized himself, a 24-year-old man on crutches, stitches between his eyebrows, a gash above his ear, another on his forehead and a bruise purpling his cheek.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2015
In the film, they are wearing virginal white nightgowns and there is a gruesome close-up of their toenails, long and crusted on bloated purpling toes.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 15, 2010
In the purpling east, cumulus clouds bumped heads in a huddle.
From Time Magazine Archive
“I see no evidence to the contrary!” shouted Fudge, now matching her anger, his face purpling.
From "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire" by J. K. Rowling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
