purple patch

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A period of excellent performance where nearly everything seems to go right, contrasting…

   A period of excellent performance where nearly everything seems to go right, contrasting with a lower general level of performance.

   • He came with a disconcerting black-eye that he wouldn’t explain. “Not so much a black-eye,” he said, “as the aftermath of a purple patch.... What’s your difficulty?”
   • Paul Weller has been in a relentlessly innovative purple patch since 2008’s 22 Dreams, which is still surprising given the workmanlike nature of his previous decade’s output.
   • This icy, strangely monochrome-sounding take on pop is enjoying a purple patch, and Stevie Parker is the latest to throw her tasteful and understated hat in the ring.
2. 2

   An ornate or elaborate section of a written work

   An ornate or elaborate section of a written work; a patch of purple prose.

   • To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the life-history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was an absolute fair rendering.
   • Utterly lacking in reverence for great thinkers, he dismissed the finest passages of poetry or prose from his consideration with light scorn as "purple patches," borrowing that hackneyed phrase from the lower walks of the press[…]

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