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 color was chosen as the web color purple because its hue is exactly halfway between red and blue and its value is exactly halfway between white and black. A traditional name sometimes used for this tone of purple is patriarch. The first recorded use of "patriarch" as a color name in English was in 1925. At right is displayed the color purple, as defined in the X11 color, which is a lot brighter and bluer than the HTML purple shown above. See the chart Color names that clash between X11 and HTML/CSS in the X11 color names article to see