Violet and Purple are treated as distinct colours in the English language. However, I have learned that in French “violet” is the umbrella term for both purple and violet. Is this true? Also, what is the colour “pourpre” then?
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2Related: english.stackexchange.com/questions/71638/… English often call purple what French call violet. French would say the actual color of a choix rouge is violet (and would never say pourpre) while English would generally say the color of a red cabbage is purple...– jlliagreJul 12, 2020 at 7:38
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1Note that neither French nor English would say a red cabbage / choux rouge is red / rouge ;-)– jlliagreJul 13, 2020 at 15:37
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1 Answer
In more technical areas of color discussion, what is "purple" in English (i.e. everything between indigo and magenta on the color wheel) is divided between "pourpre" on the reddish side of things (Pourpre being originally what English refers to specifically as Tyrian purple) and "violet" on the bluish side of things. (cf. Trésor de la langue française s.v. Pourpre & Violet, French Wikipedia...)
In the common language, however, pourpre has in practice evolved toward just being a general elevated/poetic synonym of violet (which now is roughly synonymous with English purple), because the specific shades of color that pourpre originally referred to are nowadays more likely to be referred to with wine-related words such as bordeaux or lie-de-vin.
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Héritage/appropriation catholique de pourpre : books.google.com/ngrams/… d’origine romaine cnrtl.fr/lexicographie/pourpre B.2.b– PersonneJul 13, 2020 at 6:54
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2As an aside for completeness, in Belgium mauve has displaced violet as the generic term for purple, relegating in the process violet back to the bluer subset of this part of the spectrum. Jul 13, 2020 at 18:22
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1Color terms have always been a little messy, and doubly so now that color terms are significantly affected by fashionmaking, especially from paint company (I read in an article years ago that they specifically avoided the word "mauve" in any color name at the time because it's used for less saturated versions of purple/violet in North America, and that wasn't fashionable back then.)– CirceusJul 14, 2020 at 17:41
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@Circeus — Même si c’est un peu passé de mode, c’est la couleur préférée de certains corbillards pompes-funebres-dieppoises-privees-sarl.business.site/?m=true … violet, mauve, parme étaient des nuances de la couleur préférée des grand-mères bourgeoises d’après-guerres (première et seconde).– PersonneJul 14, 2020 at 21:25