The Verse - Volume 31
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Purple Particulars

Porphyrous adj. Of or pertaining to the color purple.

According to Merriam-Webster, this is why porphyrous does not appear in their online collegiate dictionary.

"Porphyrous" is not entered in the abridged Collegiate dictionary (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition), which is used on our Web site. It is, however, entered in our unabridged dictionary (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged) and defined simply with a cross-reference to "purple." The space limitations of the abridged format, combined with the continued growth of the lexicon, force the editorial staff to exclude words that are rarely used. Our editors extensively research a wide variety of published literature looking for examples of new words or new senses for existing words. These usage citations become the basis for dictionary entry. More about this process is described on our Web site at http://www.m-w.com/about/wordin.htm. "Porphyrous" has very few recent citations in our database, which is the reason for its exclusion from the Collegiate. I did a search of the Nexis database, an enormous collection of recent newspaper and journal articles, and could not find a single example for the usage of this word (indicating that it is almost never used).

Well, OK. Let's bring back PORPHYROUS! Use this word as many times as you can from now on. The porphyrous ones (the purple guys) thank you!