purple

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   excessively elaborate or showily expressed

   a writer of empurpled literature

2. 2
   noun

   of imperial status

   They were born to the purple.

3. 3
   noun

   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.

4. 4
   noun

   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

5. 5
   noun

   Imperial power.

   1776-1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire He was born in the purple.

6. 6
   noun

   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."

7. 7
   noun

   Any of the species of large butterflies, usually marked with purple or blue, of the genus Basilarchia (formerly Limenitis).

   the banded purple

8. 8
   noun

   Ellipsis of purple drank.

   Fishtailing out the parking lot leaving Magic / Sipping on the purple and the yellow, drinking magic

Etymology

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.