Home › Glossary › Letter P

purpled

Adjective
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Rendered purple in hue or flushed with dark color; often describes bruised skies, majestic royal robes, or blood-stained landscapes in verse.

Detailed Definition
In older or more literary poetry, purpled can describe something tinted with purple or richly colored. Here it modifies the ship’s wings, giving the image a vivid, ornamental quality.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The venturous bark” flings “its purpled wings” on the summer wind, making sails resemble wings; “Purpling hills received the final sun” uses the participial adjective for gradual color; “Her purpled hands smelled of crushed berries” gives color a tactile cause; In contemporary imagery, “purpled bruises mapped his knee” shifts the word from beauty to bodily damage
Additional Notes
The adjective in the line is literary and less common in everyday speech than the basic color word purple.; Found in the poem, The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Also Known As
violet lavender amethyst plum
Skip to main content