purple
/ˈpəːp(ə)l
/- The flames ate hungrily, and erupted into strange hues of purples and blues.
- At the top of the stems there are tightly packed bracts of rich blues and purples surrounding clusters of purple-blue flowers in late spring and summer.
- The emerging colour scheme in my garden is purples, silvers and blues.
- Only a handful of adventurous souls opt for bubblegum pink, orange and purple.
- Maroon and purple were starred under wearable fur and leather coats.
- The thing is, you must remember that both imperial purple and indigo are pigments, not dyes, a dye as to be soluble.
- Garments incorporating the imperial purple were particularly valued, and at all times their sale and export was fiercely supervised.
- Britain had long been a bolt-hole for pretenders to the imperial purple, and in times of crisis it had a history of seceding from the empire and looking after its own affairs.
- Greens and reds are typically caused by oxygen, while purple and blue colours are caused by nitrogen.
- We pass through pretty forests of birch and pine trees, moss covered rocks and a haze of blue and purple flowers.
- She went back, and found another skirt, with a blue and purple flower imprint.
- Joe has clearly taken a beating, his eyes are purpled and swollen and there is blood running down his neck and back, yet it is he who is astride Colin, pounding his face in with blow after blow.
- Take their powdery beaks to the lilies, petals pursed, purpled and molded before they opened.
- The hollyhocks are gone now, and the concrete is purpled by mulberries instead.
Phrases
born in (or to) the purple
Derivatives
purpleness
- ‘The purpleness is a form of branding,’ Denney says.
- The purple varieties can be quite beautiful, but they are far less vigorous growers and there has been a noticeable falloff in the purpleness of both the above varieties since their introduction.
- I thought I needed a break from all the purpleness.
purplish
/ adjective ...- At his nether lip begins a dark purplish bruise that spreads to a little lower down almost reaching his chin.
- This is a really attractive plant with dark purplish, green, crinkled leaves and sweet smelling lilac purple flowers, it is well worth growing.
- Nori, dark green to purplish black, doesn't only come in sheets for sushi.
purply
- At the back of this planting, facing south, on either a wall or trellis plant the vine Vitis ‘Purpurea’, which in October is a wonderful rich purply red with bunches of tiny black grapes.
- It brings me out in a rash of purply, clichéd prose, like part of the sky.
- Angelou's anger would have greater resonance if more pithily and less purply expressed.
Origin
Old English (describing the clothing of an emperor), alteration of purpre, from Latin purpura 'purple', from Greek porphura, denoting molluscs that yielded a crimson dye, also cloth dyed with this.
Just as crimson is named after an insect, so purple is named after a shellfish, and at one time these two words described the same colour. The first thing to be described as purple was a crimson dye obtained from some molluscs, called porphyra in Greek, the source also of the name of the purple stone called porphyry (Late Middle English). The dye was rare and expensive and was used for colouring the robes of Roman emperors and magistrates. The actual colour of the dye varied widely, and over time the word came to mean the colour between red and blue that we now call purple. From the late 16th century purple has been used to mean ‘striking’ or ‘ornate’ in phrases such as purple prose or a purple patch. The latter term, describing an over-elaborate passage in a literary composition, is a translation of Latin purpureus pannus and comes from the Roman poet Horace's Ars Poetica: ‘Works of serious purpose and grand promise often have a purple patch or two stitched on, to shine far and wide’.