La pourpre de la honte au sourire crédule. ![]() ![]() Its noun and adjective pourpre continues to refer to the purple dyes extracted from the murex shellfish, and the historical and liturgical robes of purple, and has extended it in literary use to a dark burgundy-like red. Purpre that we calle red representeth the fire the moost noble of all iiii elementes.Īlthough English violet is used for the spectral colour (thanks to Newton purpureus was definitely more common in Classical Antiquity and in the Middle Ages), and thus is strictly distinguished in colorimetry, it is not attested in Old English (whereas purple is), and is first attested as the flower in the 14th century, with the colour not long after that.įrench prefers the adjective violet, through Latin violaceus, to cover a similar range of colours on the "line of purples". Note how this differs from the English purpure, which is closer to the Latin in orthography, is only retained in modern English in the field of heraldry, and which William Caxton is 1489 describes as: True Tyrian purple, from Bolinus brandaris, is certainly on the red side for my own range of purple, and the more violet shade from Hexaplex trunculus is closer to my ideal. This shows how English purple has generalised with the greater range of purple shades physically available. ![]() I'd say that the use of the modern English purple has shifted somewhat toward the violet side of the " line of purples" from its Latin origin purpura.
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