Purple Square Emoji

A solid purple square. The color of royalty, mystery, and 12,000 dead snails. Emojipedia lists it as approved in Unicode 12.0 (2019) under the name "Large Purple Square."

Purple has the most dramatic backstory of any color. Tyrian purple, the original purple dye, was extracted from sea snails (Murex brandaris) by the Phoenicians. It took approximately 12,000 mollusks to produce just 1 gram of dye. In Ancient Rome, wearing purple was reserved for emperors, and Emperor Theodosius II made it punishable by death to even attempt to imitate the color. Purple was literally worth killing over.

Today people use 🟪 for luxury and premium aesthetics, creativity and imagination, mystical and spiritual content, and as a color block in rainbow sets. It's also popular in Twitch streaming culture (Twitch's brand is purple) and in BTS fandom (purple is borahae, "I love you" in BTS culture).

🟪 shows up in niche but passionate communities.

Twitch's brand color is purple, making 🟪 a natural fit for streaming culture. Streamers, viewers, and gaming content creators use purple aesthetics extensively.

BTS fans (ARMY) use purple as their identity color, derived from member V (Kim Taehyung) coining "borahae" (보라해), meaning "I purple you" or "I love you." 💜 is the primary symbol, but 🟪 shows up in aesthetic sets and fan content.

In design and creative contexts, purple signals premium, luxury, and non-conformity. Brands like Cadbury, Hallmark, and Yahoo use purple to stand out from the blue-red-green corporate crowd.

The spiritual and mystical lane is real too. Tarot, astrology, crystal, and meditation accounts on Instagram lean heavily on purple aesthetics. The color's association with the third eye chakra and higher consciousness gives 🟪 a New Age dimension.

🟪 was approved in Unicode 12.0 (2019) as part of the colored shapes batch (L2/18-141).

Purple's history is wild. The Phoenicians of Tyre (modern-day Lebanon) discovered around 1500 BCE that certain sea snails (Murex brandaris) secreted a liquid that, when exposed to sunlight, turned a deep, colorfast purple. The process of making Tyrian purple was gruesome: crush thousands of live snails, extract the mucus, expose to sunlight for days. It took roughly 12,000 mollusks to produce 1 gram of dye. The resulting color wouldn't fade; it actually got brighter with washing.

This made purple absurdly expensive. In 1st-century Rome, a pound of Tyrian purple cost about half a Roman soldier's annual salary. Emperor Nero reserved the right to wear purple exclusively. Emperor Theodosius II went further: attempting to imitate the dye was punishable by death. The word "porphyrogennetos" (born in the purple) meant born into the imperial family.

The secret of Tyrian purple was lost with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and wasn't rediscovered until 2001. Synthetic purple dye (mauveine) was accidentally created by 18-year-old chemist William Henry Perkin in 1856, democratizing purple for the masses. The color went from death-penalty-exclusive to available at any paint store in about 400 years.

Ancient Mediterranean: Purple was reserved for emperors and the ultra-wealthy. Wearing unauthorized purple in Rome could get you executed. The Phoenician city of Tyre built its entire economy around the dye.

Christianity: Purple represents penance and preparation. It's the liturgical color for Advent and Lent. Bishops and cardinals wear purple vestments.

Japan: Purple (murasaki) is associated with privilege and wealth, similar to Western royalty. The Tale of Genji, one of the world's oldest novels, uses purple extensively as a symbol of nobility.

Thailand: Purple is the color of mourning. Widows wear purple, and it's avoided in celebratory contexts.

Modern pop culture: Purple is Twitch (streaming), BTS (borahae), and Cadbury (chocolate). It signals premium and creative non-conformity, standing out from the blue-red-green corporate mainstream.

• •Tyrian purple required about 12,000 Murex sea snails to produce 1 gram of dye. The extraction process killed the snails. A pound of dye in 1st-century Rome cost half a soldier's annual salary.
• •Emperor Theodosius II made it punishable by death to even attempt to imitate Tyrian purple dye. Purple wasn't just expensive; unauthorized wearing was a crime against the state.
• •The secret of Tyrian purple was lost with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and wasn't rediscovered until 2001. For 548 years, nobody knew how to make the ancient world's most famous color.
• •Synthetic purple dye was accidentally created in 1856 by 18-year-old William Henry Perkin while trying to synthesize quinine for malaria. His mistake democratized a color that had been exclusive to royalty for 3,000 years.
• •Purple is virtually nonexistent in nature. Unlike red, blue, green, and yellow, which appear abundantly in flowers, minerals, and sky, pure purple is extraordinarily rare in the natural world, which is partly why humans have always treated it as special.

• •Tyrian purple: the dye worth dying for — Phoenicians extracted Tyrian purple from 12,000 sea snails per gram. Roman emperors reserved the color exclusively. Emperor Theodosius II made imitating it punishable by death. The secret was lost in 1453 and not rediscovered until 2001.
• •William Henry Perkin (1856) — An 18-year-old chemistry student accidentally created mauveine, the first synthetic purple dye, while trying to synthesize quinine for malaria treatment. The accident democratized purple, making it available to everyone instead of just royalty.
• •BTS borahae (보라해) — BTS member V coined "borahae" meaning "I purple you" at a 2016 concert. Purple became the fandom's identity color, making 💜 and 🟪 staples of ARMY social media. It's one of the most successful color-branding moments in music history.
• •Twitch purple — The streaming platform's signature purple brand color made 🟪 a default for gaming and streaming content. Twitch's color choice positions it as creative and non-corporate in a tech world dominated by blue.

• •🟪 sits at U+1F7EAU+1F7EA in the Geometric Shapes Extended block. Official name: LARGE PURPLE SQUARELARGE PURPLE SQUARE.
• •Common shortcodes: :purple_square::purple_square: on GitHub and Slack.
• •Note the codepoint gap: the colored squares run U+1F7E5U+1F7E5-U+1F7EBU+1F7EB (red through brown), but purple is at U+1F7EAU+1F7EA, between blue (U+1F7E6U+1F7E6) and brown (U+1F7EBU+1F7EB), with orange at U+1F7E7U+1F7E7.

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.