In literary criticism, purple prose is prose text that is so extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw excessive attention to itself. Purple prose is characterized by the extensive use of adjectives, adverbs, and metaphors... Purple prose is criticized for desaturating the meaning in an author's text by overusing melodramatic and fanciful descriptions.
Here are some examples I encountered this past week while reading
The Lie Tree, by Frances Hardinge:
"The boat moved with a nauseous, relentless rhythm, like someone chewing on a rotten tooth." (p. 1)
"Slowly Faith slithered her way up the sloping stone floor." (p. 167)
"The wind fluted in the flues and flattened glossy spirals in the grass, and the trees flung up their boughs like drowning sailors." (p. 172)
"She felt some of the tense coils in her stomach loosen as she watched the snake pour like oil out of its cage. Its jaws gracefully gaped and enclosed the furred dollop." (p. 200)
"Faith thought of the hints she had dropped on the cliff-top. They had seemed so tiny and air-frail." (p. 287)
"His expression changed, anger forming soft, ugly bulges like porridge bubbles... he would break her face like a meringue." (p. 300)
"His brown mustache and beard had once been neatly clipped, but neglect had seen them break their banks, flooding his chin and cheeks..." (p. 320)
""How do my eyes appear?" Paul raised the lantern and peered, then flinched back as if stung. "Like molten butter in a pan," he said... " (p. 323)
"The voices thronged about her, and now she knew why they disturbed her. They spoke in her own voice, mangled and maddened into the gargling of a cat." (p. 365)
This is not a bad book. It is the recipient of multiple awards in the young adult fiction category, which presumably affords the author more leeway in resorting to odd similes and metaphors, so in all fairness I should emphasize, as the Wikipedia passage notes: "...there is no precise rule or absolute definition of what constitutes purple prose; deciding if a text, passage, or complete work has fallen victim is a subjective decision."
