English

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Etymology

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un- +‎ purple

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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unpurple (not comparable)

  1. (rare) Not purple, not having purple as its color.
    • 2012, John Jackson Miller, Lost Tribe of the Sith: Star Wars Legends: The Collected Stories, →ISBN:
      Befuddled, Edell looked to see other Keshiri dancing onto the streets, dressed in black with their faces painted in a variety of unpurple hues.
    • 2014, Megan Jean Sovern, The Meaning of Maggie, →ISBN, page 113:
      He used his unpurple arm to pull his purple arm around my shoulder.
  2. (rare, of writing) Not ornate; not being purple prose or poetry.
    • 1952, The Reporter, volume 6, page 35:
      Thus, in his most recent report to the President, Charles E. Wilson (whose prose is probably quite unpurple when left alone) manages in the first two sentences to allude to "America's military might," "a mighty America," []
    • 1959, Robert L. Perkin, The First Hundred Years: An Informal History of Denver:
      Subsequently Cooper became press agent for the Tammen-Bonfils circus and acquired the sawdust lore which he utilized effectively in a lean, hard-hitting, entirely unpurple style for many of his popular magazine stories.
    • 1976, James R. Scrimgeour, Sean O'Casey, page 46:
      [] is as unpurple prose as can be found anywhere.

Verb

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unpurple (third-person singular simple present unpurples, present participle unpurpling, simple past and past participle unpurpled)

  1. To (cause to) cease to be purple.
    • a. 1895, John Byrne Leicester Warren (Baron de Tabley), The Death of Phaethon, in The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley (1903), page 396:
      As some clown drunk with fumes of trodden wine,
      When the red vats unpurple all the hills,