This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 3 January 2023. This purple cabbage coleslaw is about shades of the color.

For the M2M album, see Shades of Purple. There are numerous variations of the color purple, a sampling of which are shown below. In common English usage, purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue. However, the meaning of the term purple is not well defined. The first recorded use of purple as a color name in English was in 975 AD. Tyrian purple” is the contemporary English name of the color that in Latin is denominated “purpura”. Other contemporary English names for purpura are “imperial purple” and “royal purple”.

The English name “purple” itself originally denominated the specific color purpura. Tyrian purple may have been discovered as early as during the Minoan civilization. The tone of Tyrian purple displayed above is that tone of Tyrian purple which was the color of “clotted blood”, which was considered the tone having the most prestige in ancient Greece and Rome, as recorded by Pliny the Elder. However, the actual tone varied depending on how the dye was formulated.

Han purple is a type of artificial pigment found in China between 500 BC and AD 220. It was used in the decoration of the Terracotta Army. The color royal purple is a tone of purple that is bluer than the ancient Tyrian purple. The first recorded use of royal purple as a color name in English was in 1661. In 1990, royal purple was formulated as one of the Crayola crayon colors.