PLE

Adjective

purple (comparative purpler or more purple, superlative purplest or most purple)

1. Of a purple hue.
   • So this was my future home, I thought![…]Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 40

   Synonyms:

   purpureal

2. (US) Not predominantly red or blue, but having a mixture of Democrat and Republican support.
   • purple state
3. (Belgium, Netherlands) Mixed between social democrats and liberals.
4. Imperial; regal.
   • Grovel on the earth: aye, hide / In the dust thy purple pride!1818 October, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Lines Written among the Euganean Hills, October, 1818”, in Rosalind and Helen, a Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems, London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for C[harles] and...
5. Blood-red; bloody.
   • O may ſuch purple teares be alway ſhedc. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
6. Of language, extravagantly ornate, like purple prose.
   • Near-synonyms: flowery, overwrought

   Synonyms:

   flowery, overwrought

See all 25 meanings of purple