empurple

English

Etymology

em- +‎ purple

Pronunciation

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Verb

empurple (third-person singular simple present empurples, present participle empurpling, simple past and past participle empurpled)

1. To make purple.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Some [wines] deep empurpled as the Hyacine,
     Some as the rubine, laughing sweetly red,
     Şome like fair emerauds, not yet well ripened

2. To enrage or anger, referring to making the face purple or red with blood.
3. Of writing, to make overly flowery or showy; to embellish unduly.

See also

• purple prose