purple patch

English

Etymology

Calque of Latin, see purple prose.

Noun

purple patch (plural purple patches)

1. A period of excellent performance where nearly everything seems to go right, contrasting with a lower general level of performance.
   • 1908, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Dawn Comes, and My Uncle Appears in a New Silk Hat”, in Tono-Bungay […], Toronto, Ont.: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd., →OCLC, 2nd book (The Rise of Tono-Bungay):

     He came with a disconcerting black-eye that he wouldn’t explain. “Not so much a black-eye,” he said, “as the aftermath of a purple patch.... What’s your difficulty?”

   • 2017 May 14, Phil Mongredien, “Paul Weller: A Kind Revolution review – rich in warmth and optimism”, in The Observer‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Paul Weller has been in a relentlessly innovative purple patch since 2008’s 22 Dreams, which is still surprising given the workmanlike nature of his previous decade’s output.

   • 2017 May 18, Rachel Aroesti, “Stevie Parker: The Cure review – an icily restrained pop debut”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     This icy, strangely monochrome-sounding take on pop is enjoying a purple patch, and Stevie Parker is the latest to throw her tasteful and understated hat in the ring.

   • 2021 September 6, Kieran Pender, “Jack Haig defies odds to continue Grand Tour purple patch for Australian cyclists”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     Haig’s success in Spain continues a purple patch for Australian road cycling. Before 2020, no Australian had stood on a Grand Tour podium since Evans’ retirement.

2. (originally) An ornate or elaborate section of a written work; a patch of purple prose.
   • 1904, Rudyard Kipling, “The Comprehension of Private Copper”, in Traffics and Discoveries, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC:

     To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the life-history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was an absolute fair rendering.

   • 1908, Harold Edgeworth Butler, Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal‎^[4]:

     The poet had continually to be performing acrobatic feats, now of rhetoric or epigram, now of learning, or again in the description of blood-curdling horrors, monstrous deaths and prodigious sorceries. Each work was overloaded with sententiae and purple patches.

   • 1914, Marie Corelli, Innocent: Her Fancy and His Fact‎^[5]:

     Utterly lacking in reverence for great thinkers, he dismissed the finest passages of poetry or prose from his consideration with light scorn as "purple patches," borrowing that hackneyed phrase from the lower walks of the press […]

   • 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XLI, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:

     “Who was Ruskin anyway?” asked Flanagan.
     “He was one of the Great Victorians. He was a master of English style.”
     “Ruskin’s style—a thing of shreds and purple patches,” said Lawson.

Related terms

• purple passage
• purple prose

Further reading

• Gary Martin (1997–) “Purple patch”, in The Phrase Finder.