purple
Forms
- Plural
- purples
- Comparative
- purpler
- Superlative
- purplest
Definitions
1.A colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta.
2.Imperial power.
- The immediate successors of Augustus indulged in appalling cruelties towards senators and towards possible competitors for the purple.
3.Any non-spectral colour on the line of purples on a colour chromaticity diagram or a colour wheel between violet and red.
4.Cloth, or a garment, dyed a purple colour; especially, a purple robe, worn as an emblem of rank or authority; specifically, the purple robe or mantle worn by Ancient Roman emperors as the emblem of imperial dignity.
1.Not predominantly red or blue, but having a mixture of Democrat and Republican support.
- As Mr. Friedlander conceived it, Reason was neither strictly right-wing libertarian nor strictly left, in modern parlance, neither red nor blue but a purple amalgam of the two.
2.Mixed between social democrats and liberals.
3.Imperial; regal.
4.Of a purple hue.
Frequency
Overall
Rare· #4292
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Rare
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Etymology
From Middle English purple, purpel, from Old English purpul (“purple”, adjective), taken from Old English purpure (“purple colour”, noun), from Latin purpura (“purple dye, shellfish”), from Ancient Greek πορφύρα (porphúra, “purple-fish”), perhaps of Semitic origin. Doublet of purpura and purpure.