mauve

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.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /məʊv/
• (US) IPA^(key): /mɔːv/, /moʊv/

• Audio (UK)

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• Audio (US)

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• Audio (US) (alternative)

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• Rhymes: -əʊv, -ɔːv

mauve (countable and uncountable, plural mauves)

1. (historical) A rich purple synthetic dye, which faded easily, briefly popular c. 1859‒1873 and now called mauveine.

   mauveine:  

   old mauve:  

2. A pale purple or violet colour, like the colour of the dye when it faded.

   mauve:  

   • 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter VIII, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, New York, N.Y., Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 151:

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

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:mauve.

mauve (comparative mauver or more mauve, superlative mauvest or most mauve)

1. Having a pale purple colour.
   • 1936, F.J. Thwaites, chapter XXII, in The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards, published 1940, page 222:

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

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:mauve.

• Appendix:Colors

• aevum, ævum

• IPA^(key): /mov/

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Inherited from Old French, from Latin malva (“mallow”), which has a purple colour; ultimately of Semitic origin.

mauve f (plural mauves)

1. mallow

mauve m (plural mauves)

1. mauve

mauve (plural mauves)

1. mauve

• → English: mauve
• → Greek: μοβ (mov), μωβ (mov)
• → Romanian: mov
• → Russian: мов (mov)

Inherited from Middle French mauve, from Old French mave (“mew”), from Old English mǣw (“mew, seagull”), from Proto-Germanic *maihwaz, *maiwaz (“seagull”). Related to mouette. Cognate with German Möwe (“seagull”), Dutch meeuw (“seagull”), Danish måge (“seagull”), Icelandic mávur (“seagull”), Polish mewa (“seagull”) (from Germanic). More at mew.

mauve f (plural mauves)

1. mew, gull, seagull

   Synonyms: mouette, goéland

• mauviette
• mauvis

• “mauve”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Old French mave (“mew”), from Old English mǣw (“mew, seagull”) or Old Norse már, mávar (compare Icelandic mávur), from Proto-Germanic *maihwaz, *maiwaz (“seagull”).

mauve f (plural mauves)

1. (Jersey) seagull, herring gull

• mâove (continental Normandy)
• maoue (Guernsey)

From Old French, from Latin malva.

mauve f (plural mauves)

1. (Jersey) tree mallow (Malva arborea, syn. Lavatera arborea)

• mauve dé gardîn
• grand' mauve
• maûvi