Puce eXtended (TPX)" color list, color #19-1518 TPX—Puce. Puce Puce is a dark red or purple brown color, a brownish purple or a "dark reddish brown." "Puce" is the French word for "flea". The color is said to be the color of bloodstains on linen or bedsheets, even after being laundered, from a flea's droppings, or after a flea has been crushed. The "Oxford English Dictionary" ("OED") dates the first English use of "puce" as a color to 1778. The name comes from the French word "puce", or flea, which comes from the Latin words for flea, "pulicem" or "pulex". According
Shades of purple art and history the section "In prehistory and the ancient world: Tyrian purple" " "Tyrian purple" is the contemporary English name of the color that in Latin is denominated ""purpura"". Other contemporary English names for "purpura" are "imperial purple" and "royal purple". The English name "purple" itself originally denominated the specific color "purpura". "Purpura" is the color of a dye extracted from a mollusk found on the shores of the city of Tyre in ancient Phoenicia (contemporarily in Lebanon), which color in classical antiquity was a symbol of royalty and political authority because only the very wealthy could afford it,