mauve
A rich purple synthetic dye, which faded easily, briefly popular cA rich purple synthetic dye, which faded easily, briefly popular c. 1859‒1873 and now called mauveine.
Recorded UK: Tom Morris, CC0, Wikimedia Commons · Recorded US: Dvortygirl, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
» Heather flowers are usually mauve.
Amastan · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
2 senses(countable, historical, uncountable)A rich purple synthetic dye, which faded easily, briefly popular c. 1859‒1873 and now called mauveine.
(countable, uncountable)A pale purple or violet colour, like the colour of the dye after it has faded.
fliederfarben, blasslila, mauve
- a moderate purple
Examples
3 sentencesHeather flowers are usually mauve.
Mauve was initially called "Tyrian purple."
Among the paintings of Claude Monet is one titled "Lilac Irises" and another called "Iris Mauve."
Translations
7 languagesBy meaning 1
Origin
Borrowed from French mauve (“mallow”), from Latin malva, which has a purple colour. DoubleBorrowed from French mauve (“mallow”), from Latin malva, which has a purple colour. Doublet of mallow. Coined in 1856 by the chemist William Henry Perkin, when he accidentally created the first aniline dye.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: mauvesWord family
10 related wordsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.