Purple Was Made From Sea Snails and Cost a Fortune
Purple is a colour between red and blue. Ancient dye came from molluscs, and it took thousands of them for one garment.
Purple is a colour between red and blue. Its association with royalty is economic: Tyrian purple was extracted from the glands of murex sea snails, and estimates suggest thousands of molluscs were needed to dye a single garment. Roman law eventually restricted the colour to the emperor, and *born to the purple* still means born to power.
- A colour between red and blue. *Deep purple.*
- Royal authority. *Born to the purple.*
- Purple prose — overwrought writing. *Pages of purple prose.*
- Purple patch — a run of success. *A purple patch of form.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | purple | Royal purple. |
| Adjective | purple | A purple cloak. |
| Related | Tyrian | Tyrian purple. |
| Related | murex | The murex snail. |
| Related | mauve | Pale mauve. |
How it is used in a sentence
- Born to the purple means born to power.From imperial dress.
- Purple prose is overwritten.From a phrase in Horace.
- Mauve was the first synthetic dye.Discovered by accident in 1856.
Purple facts
- Tyrian purple — from murex snails, made at Tyre and Sidon
- Cost — worth more than its weight in gold at times
- Sumptuary laws — restricted the colour to emperors
- Mauveine — the first synthetic dye, found by William Perkin in 1856
- Purple patch — from Horace's phrase about irrelevant purple passages sewn into a poem
From Old English *purpul*, from Latin *purpura*, from Greek *porphyra*, the shellfish yielding the dye.
Why was purple so expensive?
Because the dye came from murex sea snails, and thousands were needed for a single garment. Only the wealthy could afford it.
Where does *purple prose* come from?
From Horace, who mocked writers sewing irrelevant purple passages into their work like decorative patches.