Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PU'RI-TAN-IZE, v.i.

To deliver the notions of puritans. – Mountague.

PU'RI-TY, n. [Fr. purité; L. puritas, from purus.]

1. Freedom from foreign admixture or heterogeneous matter; as, the purity of water, of wine, of spirt; the purity of drugs; the purity of metals.
2. Cleanness; freedom from foulness or dirt; as, the purity of a garment. The purety of a linen vesture. – Holyday.
3. Freedom from guilt or the defilement of sin; innocence; as, purity of heart or life.
4. Chastity; freedom from contamination by illicit sexual connection. – Shak.
5. Freedom from any sinister or improper views; as, the purity of motives or designs.
6. Freedom from foreign idioms, from barbarous or improper words or phrases; as, purity of style or language.

PURL, n.¹ [supposed to be contracted from purfle. Qu.]

1. An embroidered and puckered border. – Johnson. Bacon.
2. A kind of edging for bone-lace. – Bailey.

PURL, n.²

A species of malt liquor; ale or beer medicated with wormwood or aromatic herbs. – Bailey. Johnson.

PURL, n.³

Two rounds in knitting.

PURL, n.⁴

A gentle continued murmur of a small stream of rippling water.

PURL, v.i. [Sw. porla; W. freulaw, to purl, to ripple; fraul, a rippling. It may be allied to G. brüllen, D. brullen, Dan. broler, to roar, and to Eng. frill, trill and roll.]

1. To murmur, as a small stream flowing among stones or other obstructions, which occasion a continued series of broken sounds. It is applied only to small streams. Large streams running in like manner are said to roar. In descriptions of rural scenery, the poets seldom omit a purling brook or stream. My flowery theme, / A painted mistress or a purling stream. – Pope.
2. To flow or run with a murmuring sound. Around th' adjoining brook that purls along / The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock. – Thomson.

PURL, v.t.

To decorate with fringe or embroidery. – B. Jonson.

PUR-LIEU', n. [pur'lu; Fr. pur, pure, and lieu, place.]

A border; a limit; a certain limited extent or district; originally, the ground near a royal forest, which being severed from it, was made purlieu, that is, pure or free from the forest laws. – Encyc.

PUR'LIN, n.

In architecture, a piece of timber extending from end to end of a building or roof, across and under the rafters, to support them in the middle. – Encyc.

PURL'ING, n.

The continued gentle murmur of a small stream.

PURL'ING, ppr. [from purl.]

1. Murmuring or gurgling, as a brook.
2. Decorating with fringe or embroidery.

PUR-LOIN', v.t. [Fr. pour and loin, far off. See Eloign.]

1. Literally, to take or carry away for one's self; hence, to steal; to take by theft. Your butler purloins your liquor. – Arbuthnot.
2. To take by plagiarism; to steal from books or manuscripts. – Dryden.

PUR-LOIN'ED, pp.

Stolen; taken by plagiarism.

PUR-LOIN'ER, n.

A thief; a plagiary.

PUR-LOIN'ING, n.

Theft; plagiarism.

PUR-LOIN'ING, ppr.

Stealing; committing literary theft.

PU'RO, n. [L. purus.]

He or that which is pure or free from mixture.

PUR'PAR-TY, n. [Fr. pour and partie, part.]

In law, a share, part or portion of an estate, which is allotted to a co-parcener by partition. – Cowel.

PUR'PLE, a. [Fr. pourpré; L. purpureus; Sp. purpureo; It. porporino; Gr. πορφυρεος, from πορφυρα; L. purpura, a shell from which the color was obtained.]

1. Designating a color composed of red and blue blended, much admired, and formerly the Roman emperors wore robes of this color.
2. In poetry, red or livid; dyed with blood. I view a field of blood, / And Tyber rolling with a purple flood. – Dryden.

PUR'PLE, n.

1. A purple color or dress; hence, imperial government in the Roman empire, as a purple robe was distinguishing dress of the emperors. – Gibbon.
2. A cardinalate. – Addison. Hume.

PUR'PLE, v.t. [L. purpuro.]

To make purple, or to dye of a red color; as, hands purples with blood. When morn / Purples the east. – Milton. Reclining soft in blissful bowers, / Purpled sweet with springing flowers. – Fenton.

PUR'PLED, pp.

Made purple.

PUR'PLES, n. [plur.]

Petecchiæ or spots of a livid red on the body; livid spots which appear in certain malignant diseases; a purple, i. e. a petecchial fever.

PUR'PLING, ppr.

Dyeing of a purple color, making purple.