purple-brown

2.9

A brown color that looks slightly purple

adjective
/ˈpɜrpl̩ braʊn/

: marrón púrpura

To my right is a narrow patch of reeds, its leaves beginning to turn purple-brown with autumn.

Examples

The artist mixed paints to create a rich purple-brown color for the landscape.
When he pulled off his jacket, she could see the purple-brown spots on the back of his neck.

Fiction book (1994)
I'm going to take this dark purple brown kind of color and focus that right into the outer corner, but like lower down and bring it down at an angle.
The leaves on the tree turned a beautiful purple-brown as autumn approached.
As the sun set, the sky was filled with shades of purple-brown that reflected on the water.

Synonyms

purplish-brown

vspurple-brown

3.7

A brown color with a touch of purple

is the same description but formed as a compound from the color name

How Purple

violet

2 1.6

purple

229 1.0

purple-brown

2.9

brown

939 1.0

Surface Forms

purple-brown positive

Morphology

purple-brown = purple + brown (transparent) = purple + brown

A direct, literal combination of two basic colour terms; the meaning is the combined hue between purple and brown.

Etymology

The word purple-brown simply joins two common color words: purple and brown. 'Purple' once named a 'deep, rich color' often made from a special dye, and 'brown' is a 'dark, earthy color', so purple-brown means a brown shade with a touch of purple.