Murrey

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Pronunciation: /ˈmʌɹi/

Definitions

1. A deep reddish-purple hue commonly linked to specific fruits
2. A color in heraldry resembling a dark red shade often used in armory
3. A rich, deep shade of reddish-purple similar to the color of ripe mulberries ; a traditional color in heraldry characterized by a dark reddish tone used in coats of arms

Etymology: Murrey is a colour word with a fruit at its root. Its ancestor is Latin "morum", meaning mulberry, and the Latin adjective "moratus" described things coloured like a mulberry. That Latin form passed into Middle French as "moré" and "morée", and English borrowed it in the Middle Ages as "murrey", with the sense of a deep, dark purple, the shade of a ripe mulberry's juice. The word is built from "morum" plus the suffix "-atus", which in Latin turned a noun into an adjective meaning "furnished with" or "resembling" the noun. So the word's original meaning was simply "mulberry-like", and the colour was named after the fruit rather than the other way round. The fruit's name survives in the English colour word, even though murrey itself is now rarely used outside heraldry and historical description.