purple passage
- noun
- /ˈpɜrpl ˈpæsɪdʒ/
- Literature
:
pasaje florido
- " Oh, I couldn't possibly go back through that purple passage again," she groaned.
Examples
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In her analysis, she pointed out several purple passages that elevated the author's style but detracted from clarity.
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She warned that using too many descriptive words can lead to purple passages that distract from the main message.
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Until 1959, the publisher of a book which contained any purple passage that might have a 'tendency to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences' was liable to imprisonment.
Academic text (2010) -
The novel was criticized for its tendency to include purple passages that overshadowed the plot.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although 'passage' is fully compositional as a discrete excerpt, the adjective 'purple' here relies on a figurative, language-specific sense ('purple prose' = overly ornate writing) that a B1 learner who only knows the literal color meaning is unlikely to predict. The construction is adjective + noun (transparent syntactically) but requires prior exposure to the metaphorical usage of 'purple' in literary contexts, so the expression is partially but not fully transparent.
Etymology
The phrase purple passage may come from the old idea that purple cloth was rare and worn by kings and queens, so it looked rich and showy. A passage is a short part of writing, so a purple passage is a part that uses very rich, 'flowery' language, and that's why it now means a section that is too 'showy' or 'overdone'.
