purple
Americannoun
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purples
plural
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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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purpler,
comparative
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purplest
superlative
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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:
Carlos Irving Quintana, a slim 14-year-old with purple hair, wins cheers of approval with his enactment of the iconic "Siuuu" leap of Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo when he scores a goal.
From Barron's ● Aug. 22, 2026
Typically printed in WSPU's colours of purple, white and green the cards combined traditional seasonal greetings with the movement's political message.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
After spending $40 more, I eventually walked away with two cute plushies—a fuzzy chicken leg with a penguin face and a purple tea cup with a smiley face embroidered on its side—and my dignity intact.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
He wasn’t actually going to spin blue into purple and gold.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
The edges of the leaf are mottled green, but the center is a brilliant pretty pinkish purple.
From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy
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
"And one of the most spectacular displays of autumn colour is the American ash where the leaves will turn a golden yellow before changing into purples and deep red," he added.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2025
Anthocyanins, found in berries, red cabbage and purple carrots, provide the deep reds, purples and blues we associate with these foods.
From Salon ● Jan. 20, 2025
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
A picture of us sitting on the porch at sunset, watching the sky flame up and then drift off into pinks and purples.
From "Homesick" by Jean Fritz
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
The natural tint of the lighter portions sank to an ashy gray; the pink of her cheeks grew purpler.
From Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy
Though a cloister now of the dusk-winged bat, 'Twas rich enough once, and the brothers grew fat, Looser in girdle and purpler in jowl, Singing good rest to the founder's lost soul.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 78, April, 1864 by Various
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
Full many a cow of purplest ray serene Is haply grazing where I may not see; Full many a donkey writes of her, I ween, But neither of these creatures would I be.
From The Book of Humorous Verse by Carolyn Wells
The skies are at their bluest, now; the woods and fields are at their greenest; flowers are blooming their yellowest, and purplest, and scarletest.
From Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 by Various
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
His leg is purpled with vivid rashes and lesions.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 29, 2019
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
The captain lay bloated, his face puffed and purpled, the sun baking and ruining his flesh.
From "Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi
In that race, Cox narrowly defeated three-term Rep. David Valadao, a Hanford Republican, and flipped the Central Valley’s purpling 22nd Congressional District from GOP control.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 17, 2024
The greening, or purpling, of Los Angeles also involves these elements, but mostly water.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2022
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
It wasn't that he "doubted the truth" of the memo, he told a purpling Senator McClellan.
From Time Magazine Archive
Other bushes were laden with purpling currants; butterflies abounded; and at every step grasshoppers whirred off, some crackling like the snappers kids placed against their bicycle tire spokes.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
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.
