Purple and Violet

Is there a difference between purple and violet? it is not often known what's different about them. they seem like synonyms sometimes.

Violet : Having the bluish-purple colour of wild violets : violet eyes.

I'd say that violet is a kind of purple. Not every kind of purple is violet though. For example, I'd call magenta a kind of purple too but violet and magenta are two different colours. I wonder how many people agree with me.

The two words are often used interchangeably. However, when mixing paint, violet is equal parts red and blue, whereas purple has higher saturations of blue.

Re: violets (flowers) -- not all violets are violet in color. Some have yellow, white, or blue flowers. Purple violets, the most common variety, are purple in color, but most people know them simply as "violets." Hence the confusion in terms.

Then there is the monochromatic violet light you seen in the electromagnetic spectrum the wavelength of which is shorter than that of indigo and longer than that of ultra-violet. You'll see it as the lowest of the seven bands of colour in the rainbow.

magenta is a colour between purple and red : flowers of deep magenta.

Well, this is the thing that's all so very interesting. I'd have called magenta reddish purple. The way I think is that all colours can be classified under more general terms. Violet, indigo and magenta, for example, are all kinds of purple. Likewise, turquoise, lime and aqua are all kinds of green.

I'd have said that there is no colour between red and purple, there's just reddish purple, which is just a kind of purple. I count there to be eight of these general terms: "pink", "red", "orange", "yellow", "green", "blue", "purple and "brown". I exclude "black", "grey" and "white" because they're not really colours but a broader list would include them and thus come to eleven.

Of course, making the distinction between "red" and "pink" is pretty much based on the English language but I am talking "general terms" and terms are words and words belong to language.

Anyway, what I find interesting is that each person sees things differently. The post above says magenta is not a kind of purple ... this could well be a valid point. So how many general terms for colours can you think of?

So, is pink just a kind of red in your opinion? If not, where is the line between the two?

Strike me pink.

Indigo, is it a kind of purple, a kind of blue or just indigo?