purples

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of purple.

   The gallery favored deep purples and dark blues throughout the exhibit.

   Designers paired soft purples with cream for the spring line.

   Note

   A plural that does real work. Color names usually resist counting, but they take a plural to separate shades: deep purples, soft purples. Color science even speaks of the line of purples, the non-spectral colors between violet and red on a chromaticity diagram. Outside color, the plural counts things: the mollusks that once yielded Tyrian dye, or cannabis varieties sold under the name.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of purple.

   The setting sun purples the snow on the high peaks.

   Bruising purples the skin a day or two after the injury.

   Note

   It is spelled exactly like the plural of the color, and its place in the sentence tells the two apart: here something purples. The verb works both ways. Transitively it means dyeing or clothing something in purple. Intransitively it means turning purple, as when a face purples with cold. A US slang verb shares the spelling, describing adolescents' ill-timed pursuit of the opposite sex.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A disorder marked by purple spots on the skin, caused by bleeding from small blood vessels just below the surface.

   The old physician recorded a case of purples after the fever subsided.

   Purples left a scatter of bruise-like marks across the patient's arms.

   Similarpurpura

   Note

   Purpura is the clinical name, and the English plural carries the same condition into plainer speech. It names a single disorder, not several separate spots. The same word also names a fever of pigs and a blight of wheat. Outside a clearly medical setting, a writer may need to rely on context, or switch to purpura, to make the meaning clear.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A wild orchid that bears purple flowers and blooms in early spring, found in woodlands and damp meadows.

   By mid-April the shaded banks were thick with purples.

   The botanist noted that purples favored the limestone soil near the woods.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   A highly contagious viral disease of pigs that causes fever and purplish discoloration of the skin, known also as swine fever or hog cholera.

   An outbreak of purples swept through the county's pig farms.

   The vet confirmed purples after several sows fell sick within days.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A disease of wheat in which tiny worms turn developing grains into hard galls, also called earcockle.

   A bad case of purples cut the harvest nearly in half.

   The miller rejected the sack after spotting signs of purples in the grain.

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