Mauve is a pale purple color with a grayish tone. As an adjective, it describes things that are this soft purple shade.
From French “mauve” meaning 'mallow', the name of a plant with purple flowers. The color term became popular in the 19th century, especially after synthetic mauve dyes were invented. It spread quickly in fashion and design.
Mauve was one of the first big synthetic dye colors—so trendy in the 1800s that historians talk about the 'Mauve Decade'. A lab accident by a teenager trying to make medicine gave Victorian Europe a purple fashion craze.
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