Purple vs Violet: What's the diff?

In brief, as you point out, violet is a spectral colour (that is, it occurs as a specific band in the wavelengths which compose white light and cannot be properly synthesised by any additive combination of Red-Green-Blue light). Purple, on the other hand, is a hue and can refer to quite a wide range of colours which can be obtained subtractively by mixing red and blue (or cyan and magenta) with, perhaps, a little yellow. Tyrian purple, which was the extremely expensive dye obtained from a mollusc and, because of its expense and rarity, used to denote royalty, is closer to what we would call maroon today - much redder (even brown) when compared to other colours which we call purple today. For a better understanding of the difference between violet and the various hues which are called purple this Wikipedia article is probably the most concise and digestible reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple#Purple_versus_violet

Hey Hey When I was little I loved the color purple and I still do now . Just now I like the lighter color ones . Like a very pale purple . yes, violet I think of having some blue mixed in or a little black , am thinking of the flower now.

I can answer this question because purple is my favorite color! LOL! Purple does seem to be heavier on the red side, but, there are so many shades of purple that it all depends, and then there is the shade of purple that seems to be heavier on the blue side of the spectrum. Again, as I said, there are so many shades of purple. I tend to like the purple that's heavier on the blue shades best, but, it all depends on my mood at the time. To me, violet has always been a deeper, darker color just 'verging' on the color purple. Purrs, Catwoman=^..^= & Mija

Thank you for clarifying me about this difference. Similarly why not you tell me about your knowledge in colours My mail ID trv231@rediff.com

thanks for the info, i could never really tell what the difference was except maybe one was lighter then the other, but even then i still seemed to get confused with it. Lol I feel a little bit more smart in life now thanks to this.

I looked it up and purple is actually named after a dye called purpur and violet is a shade of the color purple

Initially i confuse this purple and magenta colour.. i feel sometime that i have colour blindness ( not really) lol.. since im indulged with these bacterias i used to stain the bacterias there appears blue colour actually we stain it with methylene blue and saffronin colour stain this makes the bacteria to get a purple stain which is the presence of gram positive bacteria.. so really i understood that it comes from dark blue and light red colour but violet is purely shade of blue something like darker shade of lavendar.. :D

Yeah, I have thought about it. Question asked, question answered by poster, super_jj Thanks for educating us on the colors Violet and Purple

There is definitely a difference in violet and purple. I think that purple is a deeper, darker color than violet. Violet is more compareable to a light purple.

This is very good information and I hope I will remember it. I too get confused with the two and sometimes I just dismiss them as being the same. Cheers!!

I consider myself enlightened. People use the word purple to describe so many different colors these days, and there ARE so many different names for the variations of the same color today (try buying blue paint at a store! yikes)it gets confusing!!

I didn't know any difference between purple and violet. Now I think I've got it. Violet looks more blueish and purple seems more reddish. What a clear picture. You helped.

Hehe i have never really thought about that before! your explanation is very technical with all different types of light, i would just have said that violet is darker than purple! lol xxx

I think of purple as being a bit darker than violet.

i think purple and violet look different. purple looks like an even amount of red and blue in it.50-50 of each. but violet either looks like it has too much red or too much purple. some violets have more of a reddish purple shade and some violets have more of a bluish purple shade. so, i think they are both a form of purple, but with different amounts of red and blue in them to make them a different shade, a little off from each other.

I have always thought of violet being darker than purple. Maybe we should all break out the crayolas and color a bit before we answer this question.

purple is much lighter while violet is more darker than purple :)

Wow! I had no idea. And I thought I was good with colors. Thanks.