1. Of a colour intermediate between red and blue
   "A freshly cut meat surface isn't bright red; it's naturally purple";
   - violet, purplish
    
2. Belonging to or befitting a supreme ruler
   "purple tyrant";
   - imperial, majestic, regal, royal
    
3. Excessively elaborate or showily expressed
   "many purple passages";
   - empurpled, over-embellished
    
4. [US] (politics) having a fairly balanced mixture of Democrat and Republican support
   "Florida and North Carolina are purple states, battlegrounds that won't be a sure thing for either party for the foreseeable future"

1. A colour between red and blue
   "The purple of the lavender fields was stunning";
   - purpleness
    
2. (in ancient Rome) position of imperial status
   "he was born to the purple";
   - the purple
    
3. (Roman Catholic Church) official dress of a cardinal; so named after the Tyrial purple colour of the robes
   "The newly appointed cardinal donned the purple for the first time";
   - the purple

1. Colour purple
   "The setting sun purpled the sky";
   - empurple, purpurate [archaic]
    
2. Become purple
   "The bruise purpled over the next few days"

Derived forms: purpling, purplest, purpled, purpler, purples

See also: chromatic, noble, rhetorical

Type of: chromatic color [US], chromatic colour [Brit, Cdn], color [US], color in [US], colorise [Brit], colorize [US], colour [Brit, Cdn], colour in [Brit, Cdn], colourise [Brit], colourize [Brit, Cdn], discolor [US], discolour [Brit, Cdn], ecclesiastical attire, ecclesiastical robe, nobility, noblesse, spectral color [US], spectral colour [Brit, Cdn]

Encyclopedia: Purple, Adam