purple

1. 1.

   of a color intermediate between red and blue

   Synonymsvioletpurplish

   Similarchromatic
2. 2.

   excessively elaborate or showily expressed

   “a writer of empurpled literature”

   “many purple passages”

   “an over-embellished story of the fish that got away”

   Synonymsempurpledover-embellished

   Similarrhetorical
3. 3.

   belonging to or befitting a supreme ruler

   “golden age of imperial splendor”

   “purple tyrant”

   “regal attire”

   “treated with royal acclaim”

   “the royal carriage of a stag's head”

   Synonymsimperialmajesticregalroyal

   Similarnoble

1. 1.

   become purple

   Broaderdiscolor
2. 2.

   color purple

   Synonymsempurplepurpurate

   Broadercolor

Other forms of purple

plural

purples·

past tense

purpled·

present participle

purpling·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about purple

What does purple mean?

purple means "a purple color or pigment". That is the primary sense; the word has 8 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in purple?

purple has 2 syllables: pur-ple. The stress falls on "pur". In IPA it is /ˈpɝpəl/.

What is another word for purple?

Close synonyms include purpleness, the purple, the purple, violet, purplish. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is purple a common word?

purple is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.