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red-spotted purple

 - 4 dictionary results
Red Spotted Purple
China, Crystal, Silver Old & New 286,000 Patterns, 12 Million Pieces
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red-spot⋅ted pur⋅ple

  [red-spot-id] .
Use red-spotted purple in a Sentence
–noun
See under purple (def. 7).
Origin:
1765–75, Americanism
Red Spotted Purple
China, Crystal, Silver Old & New 286,000 Patterns, 12 Million Pieces
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pur⋅ple

  [pur-puhl] noun, -pler, -plest, adjective, verb, -pled, -pling.
–noun
1. any color having components of both red and blue, such as lavender, esp. one deep in tone.
2. cloth or clothing of this hue, esp. as formerly worn distinctively by persons of imperial, royal, or other high rank.
3. the rank or office of a cardinal.
4. the office of a bishop.
5. imperial, regal, or princely rank or position.
6. deep red; crimson.
7. any of several nymphalid butterflies, as Basilarchia astyanax (red-spotted purple), having blackish wings spotted with red, or Basilarchia arthemis (banded purple or white admiral), having brown wings banded with white.
–adjective
8. of the color purple.
9. imperial, regal, or princely.
10. brilliant or showy.
11. full of exaggerated literary devices and effects; marked by excessively ornate rhetoric: a purple passage in a novel.
12. profane or shocking, as language.
–verb (used with object), verb (used without object)
13. to make or become purple.
—Idiom
14. born in or to the purple, of royal or exalted birth: Those born to the purple are destined to live in the public eye.
Origin:
bef. 1000; ME purpel (n. and adj.), OE purple (adj.), var. of purpure < L purpura kind of shellfish yielding purple dye, the dye, cloth so dyed < Gk porphýra; cf. purpure, porphyry

Related forms:
pur⋅ple⋅ness, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Word Origin & History

purple 
O.E. purpul, dissimilation (first recorded in Northumbrian, in Lindisfarne gospel) from purpure "purple garment," purpuren "purple," from L. purpura "purple-dyed cloak, purple dye," also "shellfish from which purple was made," from Gk. porphyra (see porphyry), of Semitic origin, originally the name for the shellfish (murex) from which it was obtained. Tyrian purple, produced around Tyre, was prized as dye for royal garments. As a color name, attested from 1398. Also the color of mourning or penitence (especially in royalty or clergy). Rhetorical for "splendid, gaudy" (of prose) from 1598. Purpur continued as a parallel form until 15c., and through 19c. in heraldry. Purple Heart, U.S. decoration for service members wounded in combat, instituted 1932; originally a cloth decoration begun by George Washington in 1782. Hendrix' Purple Haze (1967) is slang for "LSD."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: 2purple
Function: noun
1 : any of various colors that fall about midway between red and blue in hue
2 : a pigment ordye that colors purple —see VISUAL PURPLE
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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