Purple refers to any of a variety of colors with hue between red and blue.

[1][2]
Purple is closely associated with violet. In optics, purple and violet refer to colors that look similar,
but purples are mixtures of red light and blue or violet light,[3][4] whereas violets are spectral colors (of
single wavelengths of light). In common usage, both refer to colors that are between red and blue
in hue, with purples closer to red and violets closer to blue.[5][6] Similarly, in the traditional painters'
color wheel, purple and violet are both placed between red and blue, with purple closer to red.
Purple has long been associated with royalty, originally because Tyrian purple dye was extremely
expensive in antiquity.[7] Purple was the color worn by Roman magistrates; it became the imperial
color worn by the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, and later by Roman
Catholic bishops. Similarly in Japan, the color is traditionally associated with the emperor and
aristocracy.[8]
According to contemporary surveys in Europe and the United States, purple is the color most often
associated with royalty, magic, mystery, and piety.[9][need quotation to verify] When combined with pink, it is
associated with eroticism, femininity, and seduction.[10]

Etymology and definitions

The modern English word purple comes from the Old English purpul, which derives
from Latin purpura, which, in turn, derives from the Greek πορφύρα (porphura),[11] the name of
the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-
murex snail.[1][12] The first recorded use of the word purple dates to the late 900s AD.[1]

Relationship to violet

Violet

    Color coordinates

Hex triplet #7F00FF

sRGBB  (r, g, b) (127, 0, 255)

CMYKH   (c, m, y, k) (50, 100, 0, 0)

HSV       (h, s, v) (270°, 100%, 100[13]%)

Source HTML Color Chart @274

 B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

The line of purples circled on the CIE chromaticity diagram. In optics, purple refers to points near and along the
circled line, whereas violet refers to the bottom of the curved left edge.

Purple is closely associated with violet. In common usage, both refer to colors that are between red
and blue in hue, with purples closer to red and violets closer to blue.[5][6] Similarly, in the traditional
painters' color wheel, purple and violet are both placed between red and blue, with purple is closer to
red.
In optics, violet is a spectral color: It refers to the color of any different single wavelength of light on
the short wavelength end of the visible spectrum (between approximately 380 and 450 nanometers),
[14]
 whereas purple is the color of various combinations of red, blue, and violet light,[15][16] some of which
humans perceive as similar to violet.
In humans, the L (red) cone in the eye is primarily sensitive to long wavelength light in the yellow-red
region of the spectrum, but is also somewhat sensitive to the shorter wavelength violet light that
primarily stimulates the S (blue) cone. As a result, when violet light strikes the eye, the S-cone is
stimulated strongly and the L-cone is stimulated weakly. Accordingly, strong blue light mixed with
weaker red light can mimic this pattern of stimulation, causing humans to perceive colors that the
same hue as violet, but with lower saturation.[citation needed] Computer and television screens rely on this
phenomenon. Because they use the RGB color model, they cannot produce violet light and instead
substitute purple (a mixture red and blue light)