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Synonyms

puce

American  
[pyoos] / pyus /

adjective

  1. of a dark or brownish purple.

noun

  1. a dark or brownish purple.

puce British  
/ pjuːs /

noun

    1. a colour varying from deep red to dark purplish-brown

    2. ( as adjective )

      a puce carpet
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of puce

1780–90; < French: literally, flea < Latin pūlic-, stem of pūlex

Vocabulary lists containing puce

Red

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"Mississippi Solo," Vocabulary from the memoir

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Glazes are often brash and runny, chartreuse entwined with grape or puce with orange and off-white.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 17, 2015

Shimmering first in puce, then fluttering in chartreuse, the colors of the background and the sundae evolve through many colors of the rainbow.

From Slate • Jul. 3, 2012

Generally, though, the underlying principle is that English football is an adversarial business, in which teams clash, tribes collide and everyone goes round puce with rage.

From The Guardian • Apr. 7, 2011

As messy as the characters’ lives become, the midcentury color scheme — based on puce, plum, pistachio and pumpkin — remains reassuringly tidy.

From New York Times • Sep. 25, 2010

Vernon Dursley, whose mustache was quite as bushy as Dumbledore’s, though black, and who was wearing a puce dressing gown, was staring at the visitor as though he could not believe his tiny eyes.

From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.