Word.ws English Dictionary

purple

UK/ˈpɜː.pl̩//ˈpɝ.pl̩/

purple noun: a colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta. Also the ellipsis of purple drank.

purple: a colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta
Image: Mizunoryu, Badseed, Jacobolus, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

purple (countable and uncountable, plural purples)

  1. A colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta.
    • Arraying with reflected Purple and Gold / The Clouds that on his Weſtern Throne attend.1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
    Synonyms:
    blue-red
  2. (colour theory) Any non-spectral colour on the line of purples on a colour chromaticity diagram or a colour wheel between violet and red.
  3. 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.
    • to put on the imperial purple
    • Thy head as Carmelus: and the heares of thy head as a kings purple tyed to cundite pipes.1610, The Second Tome of the Holie Bible, […] (Douay–Rheims Bible), Doway: Laurence Kellam, […], →OCLC, Canticle of Canticles 7:5, page 341
  4. (broadly) Imperial power.
    • He was born in the purple.1776-1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
    • When we picture to ourselves his [Napoleon’s] dawning military genius at Toulon—his daring and decided politics in the storms of the Revolution—his Cæsarian ambition in assuming the purple—[…]1829 March, “Napoleon a Sainte Helene. Opinion d’un Medecin sur la Maladie de l’Empereur Napoleon, et sur la Cause de sa Mort; offerte a son Fils, au Jour de sa Majorite. Par S. Hereau, […]”, in...
  5. Any of various species of mollusks from which Tyrian purple dye was obtained, especially the common dog whelk.
  6. The purple haze cultivar of cannabis in the kush family, either pure or mixed with others, or by extension any variety of smoked marijuana.
    • "Sure, some purple Owlsley."2005, Tipi Paul, Wanna Smoke?: The Adventures of a Storyteller, page 14
    • “Purple smoke is no joke. Especially when it is real purple. The smell, taste, and high is easily one of the best in the world. One bowl of some purple Kush, and I'm done for a couple of hours.2010, Mark Arax, West of the West, page 221
  7. Purpura.
  8. Earcockle, a disease of wheat.
  9. Any of the species of large butterflies, usually marked with purple or blue, of the genus Basilarchia (formerly Limenitis).
    • the banded purple
  10. A cardinalate.
  11. (UK, slang) Synonym of snakebite and black.
  12. A purple dye or pigment.
  13. A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of purple pigment.
  14. Something, or a part of a thing, which is purple.

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
    • purple city
  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...
    • Wars, horrid Wars I view; a field of Blood; / And Tyber rolling with a Purple Flood.1697, Virgil, “The Sixth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 366, lines...
  6. Of language, extravagantly ornate, like purple prose.
    • Near-synonyms: flowery, overwrought
    • A writer who has made a career of churning out thick novels may be expected to write too quickly to notice that patches of her writing are unbearably purple.1979 August 4, Rob Schmieder, “Anything a Man Does”, in Gay Community News, page 15
    Synonyms:
    flowery, overwrought
  7. Of a sector, lap, etc., completed in the fastest time so far in a given session.

Verb

purple (third-person singular simple present purples, present participle purpling, simple past and past participle purpled)

  1. (intransitive) To turn purple in colour.
    • [T]he Capri cliffs, the tops of which were still pink against the purpling sky.1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 143
    • The gang leader purpled and raised his gun.1999, David Edelstein, In Nomine: Corporeal Player's Guide, Steve Jackson Games,, →ISBN, page 8
  2. (transitive) To dye purple.
    • Year after year unto her feet, / She lying on her couch alone, / Across the purpled coverlet, / The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, […]1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Day-Dream. The Sleeping Palace.”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 152
  3. (transitive) To clothe in purple.

Proper noun capitalized: Purple

Purple

  1. (rare) A surname from Middle English.

Also used as

purple is also the ellipsis of purple drank.

purple meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

purple in Hindi

colour
जामुनी jāmunī, बैंगनी baiṅgnī, बैगनी baignī

purple in Tamil

colour
ஊதா ūtā

purple in Marathi

colour
जांभळा jāmbhḷā

purple in Urdu

colour
جامنی jāmanī
More languagesFewer languages
purple in Bengali
রক্তবর্ণ roktoborno, বেগুনী beguni
purple in Telugu
లేత ఎరుపు రంగు lēta erupu raṅgu, ఊదా ūdā
purple in Malayalam
ധൂമ്രനൂൽ dhūmranūl
purple in Kannada
ಕೆನ್ನೀಲಿ kennīli, ಕೆನ್ನೇರಳೆ kennēraḷe, ನೇರಳೆ nēraḷe
purple in Punjabi
ਜਾਮਨੀ jāmnī
purple in Gujarati
જાંબુડિયું jā̃buḍiyũ, જાંબલી jā̃blī
purple in Odia
ବାଇଗଣୀ, ବାଇଗଣୀ ରଙ୍ଗକୁ
purple in Nepali
बैंगनी baiṅganī
purple in Tagalog
haban, lila
purple in Arabic
بَنَفْسَجِيّ banafsajiyy, أُرْجُوَانِيّ ʔurjuwāniyy
purple in Malay
ungu
purple in Indonesian
ungu
purple in Persian
بنفش banafš, ارغوانی arġavānī
purple in Thai
สีม่วง sǐi-mûuang, ม่วง mûuang
purple in Vietnamese
tía, đỏ tía, màu tím
purple in Myanmar
ခရမ်းရောင်နု hka.ram:raungnu.

Examples of purple in a sentence

  • The immediate successors of Augustus indulged in appalling cruelties towards senators and towards possible competitors for the purple.1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.29:
  • She preferred to smoke some good purple, but getting high wasn't an option.2011, Danielle Santiago, Allure of the Game, page 148:
  • In the end, Nevada remained the quintessential purple state.2010, Hal K. Rothman, The Making of Modern Nevada, University of Nevada Press, →ISBN, page 162:
  • 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.2011 May 7, Margalit Fox, “Lanny Friedlander, Founder of Reason Magazine, Dies at 63”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the...

All 40 example sentences with purple

Synonyms of purple

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of purple

Forms of purple

Noun
pluralpurples
Adjective
comparativepurpler
comparativemore purple
superlativepurplest
superlativemost purple
Verb
third-person singular presentpurples
present participlepurpling
past participlepurpled
pastpurpled

Plural of purple: purples

Origin of purple

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. The sense of "imperial power" is from the wearing of the color purple by emperors and kings.

Words formed from purple

Phrases with purple

120 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with purple

Questions about purple

What does purple mean?
Purple means a colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta.
What is purple in Hindi?
Purple in Hindi is जामुनी (jāmunī), बैंगनी (baiṅgnī), बैगनी (baignī). See Purple meaning in Hindi.
How do you use purple in a sentence?
The immediate successors of Augustus indulged in appalling cruelties towards senators and towards possible competitors for the purple.
What part of speech is purple?
Purple can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce purple?
Purple is pronounced /ˈpɜː.pl̩/ (UK).
What is the plural of purple?
The plural of purple is purples.

Words near purple in the dictionary

  1. purp.
  2. purpart
  3. purparties
  4. purparts
  5. purparty
  6. purple
  7. purple airway
  8. purple airways
  9. purple bacteria
  10. purple bar
  11. purple beautyberry

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: purple (page history and authors); Purple (page history and authors); purple (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-purple.ogg.

Cite this entry: “purple.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/purple. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.