Definition of Purple Heart

1. Noun. A United States military decoration awarded to any member of the armed forces who is wounded in action.


2. Noun. A long-acting barbiturate used as a sedative.

Definition of Purple Heart

1. Noun. (chiefly US military) A US military decoration awarded in the name of the President of the United States to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after 5 April 1917 with the U.S. military. ¹

2. Noun. The drug phenobarbitone when used for illicit purposes. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Lexicographical Neighbors of Purple Heart

purple dye murex
purple dye murices
purple emperor
purple emperors
purple finch
purple fringeless orchid
purple fringeless orchis
purple gallinule
purple gas
purple grackle
purple granadillo
purple ground cherry
purple hairstreak
purple hairstreaks
purple haze
purple heart
purple heather
purple heron
purple herons
purple loco
purple locoweed
purple loosestrife
purple loosestrifes
purple martin
purple milk vetch
purple mullein
purple nightshade
purple nurple
purple nurples

Literary usage of Purple Heart

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Sketches of the animal and vegetable productions of America by Mary Roberts (1839)
"... the beautiful brown letter-wood, spotted like a leopard's skin, or varied with marks resembling hieroglyphics, or else the purple heart, so called from ..."

2. A Description of British Guiana, Geographical and Statistical: Exhibiting by Robert Hermann Schomburgk (1840)
"The Purple Heart is rather scarce on the coast- regions. It is a tree of the largest size, and its wood is used for furniture in consequence of the beauty ..."

3. A Practical Treatise on Dyeing and Calico-printing; Including the Latest by Edward Andrew Parnell, Robert Macfarlane (1860)
"Purple Heart.—At a recent meeting of the Manchester (England) Philosophical Society, Dr. F. Grace Calvert, the eminent chemist, read a paper on researches ..."

4. The Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia: Commercial by Edward Balfour (1885)
"It has a purple heart- vood ; H is much used for building purposes, ... ItB wood is light-coloured, with a purple heart ; it is dose-grained, ..."

5. Wood: A Manual of the Natural History and Industrial Applications of the by George Simonds Boulger (1902)
"Much used for posts, piles, sleepers, etc. Purple-heart of Guiana ... Used for furniture, gun-carriages and works of construction. Purple-heart of Trinidad ..."

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