purple passage

One must taste death for a few centuries of such agony ere he can receive sanction for purple passages.

For example, a paragraph containing an excessive number of long and unusual words is called a purple passage.

It came to be called the late 1980s' "purple passage of the autumn of nations".

I wonder if you think as well of your purple passages as I do of mine?

'And,' she said drily, casting the purple passages over the table like a deck of cards.

There are no purple passages in machine toil.

But if the spending of one hundred and eighty dollars in twelve hours isn't a purple passage, then I'd like to know what is.

This is not one of the chronicler's purple passages, but seems to be a sober report of the negotiations, and it matters a great deal.

One "purple passage" could consign a novel to condemnation, and there was no defence of literary merit.

Prosecuting counsel could secure conviction merely by drawing attention to isolated "purple passages" taken out of context.