Mauve

//mɔːv// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A rich purple synthetic dye, which faded easily, briefly popular c. 1859‒1873 and now called mauveine. countable, historical, uncountable
  2. 2
    a moderate purple wordnet
  3. 3
    A pale purple or violet colour, like the colour of the dye after it has faded. countable, uncountable

    "Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Having a pale purple colour.

    "[A]long their time-marked walls wistaria threw patches of mauve blossom."

Adjective
  1. 1
    of a pale to moderate greyish violet color wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
amethystinechromaticcolorlavenderlilaclivid

Example

More examples

"I looked round me. I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that their mauve and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the beating of the hail-stones."

Etymology

Borrowed 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.

Related phrases

Perkin's mauvemauve boxmauve stinger

More for "mauve"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.