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In:Colour Studies: A broad spectrum
Edited by Wendy Anderson, Carole P. Biggam, Carole Hough and Christian Kay
[Not in series 191] 2014
► pp. 153–166

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Exploring the metaphorical use of colour with the Historical Thesaurus of English

A case study of purple and lavender

Published online: 26 November 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/z.191.10ham
Previous research into metaphors containing colour terms has focused on the primary basic colour terms, yet examples can also be found with the secondary basic and non-basic colour terms. A case study of the colour terms purple and lavender is presented here. Situated within the Mapping Metaphor project, this analysis utilizes the unique data source, the Historical Thesaurus. In addition to thesaurus data, dictionaries were consulted to establish the etymologies of metaphorical phrases. Finally, corpus evidence was used to establish current usage of such phrases.
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