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:
"They have been much less able to win in some more traditionally purple areas."
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
She sauntered on the stage with electrified green and purple hair and Vivienne Westwood-style chic to perform a cover of the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
In the last year the targets for the most urgent, life-threatening calls have changed, with the introduction of "purple" and "red" categories which focus more on patient outcomes rather than how quickly the paramedics arrive.
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
I was wearing purple pants, a purple shirt, and purple socks and sneakers.
From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan
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
In 2026, there is a good chance that the vivid purples, reds and greens of the Northern Lights will be visible in skies across the UK.
From BBC ● Dec. 28, 2025
“Mike took it and made it incredibly subtle: flesh with the violets and the purples and the pearlescence,” Del Toro says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2025
So Akimi flipped over all the other blue cards while Miguel flipped over all the purples.
From "Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library" by Chris Grabenstein
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
Though a cloister now of the dusk-winged bat, 'Twas rich enough once, and the brothers grew fat, 20 Looser in girdle and purpler in jowl, Singing good rest to the founder's lost soul.
From The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell by Lowell, James Russell
My body was purpler than a huckleberry pie, and my linen was torn into pieces finer than a postage-stamp.
From Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 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
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 achieved its purplest popularity between 1895 and 1900, was fading fast by 1914.
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 Wells, Carolyn
The golden walls of this palace which I have built look down, enamoured of their reflection, into a lake of the choicest, purplest wine.
From The Purple Cloud by Shiel, M. P. (Matthew Phipps)
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
And he hated himself because even as she lay dying he saw how wide and ghastly her purpled lips drew back from her teeth.
From "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck
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
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
Off in the distance gleamed San Francisco Bay; beyond it, looming out of the sea itself, was Mount Tamalpais, its summit aswirl with purpling, swiftly scudding clouds.
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.
