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perse

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perse¹

  • /pɜːs/ Australia, UK
  • /pəːs/ British, Southern, Standard
  • /pɚs/ US
  • /pøːs/ New Zealand, Wales
  • /pɛɾs/ Scotland
  • /peːs/
  • /pɛːs/

Sounds like purse (fern–fir–fur merger) · Rhymes with -ɜː(ɹ)s

Where it comes from

From Middle English pers, from Old French, from Medieval Latin persus, back-formed from Persicus (“Persian”), from Ancient Greek Περσικός (Persikós). Compare peach.

noun perses

  1. countable, uncountable A very dark (almost black) purple or blue-gray colour.
  2. countable, uncountable A cloth of this colour.

adjective

  1. Very dark greyish (almost blackish) purple or blue.

perse²

verb perses · persing · persed · perst

  1. obsolete Obsolete form of pierce

Perse³

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Πέρση (Pérsē), literally "destroyer", from the verb πέρθω (pérthō, “to destroy”). Compare Perses.

proper noun

  1. Greek An Oceanid, (one of the three thousand daughters of the Titans' Oceanus and Tethys), and the wife of the sun god, Helios, by whom she is the mother of Aeetes, Perses, Pasiphae, and Circe. One of her many sisters is Amphitrite, (the wife of Poseidon). Perse is also closely identified with Hecate.

    Similar: Perseis

Perse⁴

Where it comes from

A variant of Piers.

proper noun

  1. A rare surname transferred from the given name.

Translations

Every language

name one of the Oceanids

FrançaisPersé

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Cite this
MLA

"perse." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/perse. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

perse. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/perse

Chicago

"perse." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/perse.

BibTeX
@misc{perse_2026,
  title = {perse},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/perse},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}