purple
/ˈpɝ.pl̩/ noun A1- A colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta.
- Any non-spectral colour on the line of purples on a colour chromaticity diagram or a colour wheel between violet and red.
- 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
- Imperial power. · 1776-1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire He was born in the purple.
- Any of various species of mollusks from which Tyrian purple dye was obtained, especially the common dog whelk.
- The purple haze cultivar of cannabis in the kush family, either pure or mixed with others, or by extension any variety of smoked marijuana.
- Purpura.
- Earcockle, a disease of wheat.
Plural purples
From the library
The air was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards and the meadows sloped away in the distance to horizon mists of pearl and purple; while
Below the boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.
In the garden below were lilac-trees purple with flowers, and their dizzily sweet fragrance drifted up to the window on the morning wind.
There were rosy bleeding-hearts and great splendid crimson peonies; white, fragrant narcissi and thorny, sweet Scotch roses; pink and blue and white columbines and lilac-tinted Bouncing Bets; clumps of southernwood and ribbon grass and mint; purple Adam-and-Eve, daffodils, and masses of sweet clover white with its delicate, fragrant, feathery sprays; scarlet lightning that shot its fiery lances over prim white musk-flowers; a garden it was where sunshine lingered and bees hummed, and winds, beguiled into loitering, purred and rustled.
Other matches
Learn purple in real texts
With a free account, hover any word in the library for its meaning, hear it read aloud, save words for review timed to your memory, and see how much of each book you already know.