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Originally published: 2006 | Last updated: 10-07-26 — This Meaning of Purple guide has been refined over 20 years of researching color, with enhanced explanations and updated examples.
Where do we find the meaning of purple? Can we consult the regal robes of wealthy rulers of old? Is purple the resplendent glory of summer revealed by the iris in full bloom? Is purple the whimsical hue favored by unicorns and fairies? Purple delights us in many forms.
Purple is royal. It’s elaborate, replete with the trappings of majesty and ceremony. It’s the favorite color of adolescent girls, and it’s the color of fantasy and magic. It’s half-blue, half-red, and our understanding of purple lies somewhere in between the serenity of blue and the passion of red.
What do we know about purple? Here it is in three parts: what it does to your body, what it means across cultures, and what it means to you personally.
Purple both calms and stimulates our bodies, putting us in the right place for introspection and focused insight. It fosters creativity by awakening our senses while promoting the quiet necessary to make intuitive, insightful observations. Purple creates a harmonious balance of awareness and peace.
Purple has long been associated with wealth and royalty, as purple dye was precious and expensive. If green is the color of spring, then purple conjures up autumn, fading light, and shorter days. Purple is insouciant–associated with creativity and irreverence (as in the Purple Hat groups of women who embrace aging as an excuse to flout convention.) Purple also represents harmony–the balance between opposing forces.
Your own experience of purple is just as real as these universal and cultural layers. Maybe purple calls up a childhood fascination with unicorns, a grandmother’s amethyst ring, or the exact shade of a dress you wore to a dance you still think about. Those personal associations are part of why purple can feel regal to one person and over-the-top to another — the color asks you to bring your own history to it.
Purple is cheerful–whimsical and playful. It’s associated with an escape from reality and magical images. Purple is often a statement of independence as it’s not a basic, primary color, and it’s often a sign of fusing the mundane with the innovative. Purple is also associated with bravery, and the Purple Heart is awarded to members of the armed forces who are injured in the line of duty. Professional uses of purple convey high value and lofty goals.
As purple lives balanced between red and blue, it can be seen as an unstable, non-traditional color. Notions of royalty and ceremony can be off-putting to more democratic sensibilities, and purple can convey feelings of arrogance and condescension. Purple used professionally can feel a bit unsettled and therefore uncomfortable.
Chakras are energy centers within the body that help to regulate all its processes. Each chakra governs specific functions and is represented by one of the seven chakra colors.
Violet: (purple) is the color of the Crown chakra, also known as Sahasrara. This chakra is located at the top of the head. The Crown chakra is linked to the crown of the head, nervous system, and the brain, and is representative of pure thought. This chakra connects one with the infinite consciousness. Opening this chakra will help tap into a deep spiritual understanding. Gemstones that will aid the Crown chakra include diamond and clear quartz.
February’s birthstone is amethyst, a purple variety of quartz that ranges from pale lilac to deep violet. Amethyst takes its name from the Greek “a methystos,” meaning “not drunk” — the ancient Greeks believed the stone could protect its wearer from the effects of alcohol. Amethyst was once considered as precious as ruby or emerald, until large deposits discovered in Brazil in the 19th century made it far more widely available.
No perfect rhyme — almost. It’s commonly said nothing in English rhymes with “purple,” but two obscure words come close: “hirple” (to walk with a limp) and “curple” (the hindquarters of a horse).
Purple Day. Observed every March 26th, Purple Day was created in 2008 by Cassidy Megan, a young girl in Nova Scotia living with epilepsy, to get people talking openly about the condition. She chose purple partly because it was her favorite color, and the shade has since become a global symbol of solidarity for people living with epilepsy.
The only purple team in Major League Baseball. The Colorado Rockies, based in Denver, are the only MLB team to make purple part of their team colors, alongside black and silver.
A bridge just for walking. The Purple People Bridge, spanning the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Newport, Kentucky, is one of the few pedestrian-only bridges in the country and can be rented out for private events.
Eleven nominations, zero wins. The Color Purple, based on Alice Walker’s novel, was nominated for eleven Academy Awards in 1986 — including nods for Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey — and famously won none of them.
Examples of how the meaning of purple colors our language:
Purple prose: a phrase meant to insult or disparage flowery language or an elaborately written poem or paragraph.
Purple heart: a medal awarded to a US soldier wounded in battle
Born to the purple: a person who is born into a noble or royal family
Laid out in lavender: prepared for burial; also used to mean presenting something in its best light
See more purple words, idioms, and phrases.
See All of the Quotes About Purple>>
A signature color is different than a favorite color although for some people they may be one and the same. It is all in how you express yourself with a color and how consistently you wear it or surround yourself with the color that makes it your signature shade.
Some people build their whole identity around purple. Prince loved the color so completely that it extended to his wardrobe, his stage sets, his album covers, and of course, “Purple Rain” — in 2016, a Minnesota state senator proposed making purple the state’s official color in his honor, though the bill died in committee and never came up for a vote. The Red Hat Society, inspired by Jenny Joseph’s poem “Warning” (“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple…”), built a whole social movement around purple attire and red hats. The Alzheimer’s Association chose purple as its signature color too, pairing the calm of blue with the energy of red to represent its fight against the disease.
Soft lavenders and lilacs work well as a calming neutral in bedrooms and bathrooms, pairing easily with white, gray, or warm wood tones. Deep purples and plums make a dramatic accent — a velvet chair, an accent wall, statement textiles — but are easy to overdo across an entire room.
Lighter purples like lavender and lilac are soft and easy to wear, while jewel-toned purples such as plum and amethyst read as more sophisticated and confident. Bright purple is a bold statement piece best worn in moderation, since too much can start to feel costume-like rather than polished.
Purple anchors a handful of well-known brand identities: Cadbury’s signature wrapper, Hallmark’s ribbon, Crown Royal’s regal bag and bottle, FedEx’s logo accent, Nexium’s marketing as “the purple pill,” Yahoo!’s original logo color, Accenture’s brand identity, and Monster.com’s branding. The color’s ties to royalty and luxury make it a natural fit for brands reaching for a premium, trustworthy feel.
Purple shows up across genres in song titles. Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” may be the most famous example, alongside Prince’s “Purple Rain,” Sheb Wooley’s novelty hit “Purple People Eater,” and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Purple Stain.” Ani DiFranco, Slapshock, Tangerine Dream, They Might Be Giants, The Bees, Alexis Shepard, and Gogol Bordello have all written songs referencing the color as well. See more songs with color.
Scent and color are closely connected for most people. Crayola’s purple “Grape” crayon was originally scented to smell like limes before the company changed it, after reports of children trying to eat food-scented crayons. Lavender, the scent most associated with purple, has been shown to lower heart rate and blood pressure; one sleep study found people who smelled lavender before bed got more deep sleep and woke up more energized, and a separate study found infants cried less and slept more soundly after a lavender-scented bath. Lavender has also been a cornerstone of perfume-making for centuries, popularized for men in the 19th century through classic scents like Atkinson’s English Lavender and Yardley’s Old English Lavender.
Purple shapes taste as much as smell. Gourmet chefs have leaned into purple produce in recent years — eggplant for its glossy color and texture, the “Purple Haze” carrot (the only imperator-shaped purple carrot), and the “Purple Orchid Three” sweet potato, a variety whose seeds were sent into space aboard China’s Shenzhou VI mission in 2005. Purple grapes, including the Concord grape native to North America, round out the list of purple foods most people already know well.
Purple is considered a cool, calming color in landscape design, and because purple plants visually recede rather than advance, they can help a small garden feel larger. Purple’s complementary color in the garden is yellow, which is why the two are so often paired for contrast.
What does the color purple symbolize? Purple symbolizes royalty, luxury, and creativity. It blends the passion of red with the calm of blue, which is part of why it reads as both regal and a little mysterious.
What chakra is associated with purple? The Crown chakra (Sahasrara), located at the top of the head and linked to pure thought and spiritual connection.
Why was purple historically associated with royalty? Tyrian purple dye, extracted from thousands of sea snails, was so labor-intensive to produce that only the wealthiest rulers could afford garments dyed with it — a scarcity that cemented purple’s association with power for centuries.
Is purple a popular favorite color? It consistently ranks among the top favorite colors in surveys, especially among women and younger people, though it’s less universally popular than blue.
Where do you land on purple? Some people wear it constantly and build a whole identity around it; others find it a little much in large doses, or associate it mainly with childhood toys and princess costumes. Both reactions make sense — purple sits at an unusual crossing point of regal, whimsical, and strange, and how it lands on you says something real about which side you lean toward.
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