purple
adj.— «I’m quite surprised sometimes when I come to America and I find the interservice rivalry still surprises me in many ways. It doesn’t happen here because we are so much smaller as far as armed forces go than the Americans. And nearly all of the senior officer education, senior officer posts are what we call purple. By the time you get to be a brigadier general, you start to be very, very purple and you start to be very, very triservice.» —“Talk of the Nation: Military leadership in possible war with Iraq” by Charles Heyman National Public Radio (U.S.) Mar. 17, 2003. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Advice about college essays from the winner of a top prize for children’s literature: Kelly Barnhill encourages teens to write about experiences that are uniquely their own, from a point of view that is theirs and no one else’s. Plus, why do we say...
While compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, lexicographer James Murray exchanged hundreds of letters a week with authors, advisors, and volunteer researchers. A new collection online lets you eavesdrop on discussions about which words should be...