Etymology: < classical Latin Persae natives of Persia < ancient Greek Πέρσαι natives of Persia (see Persian n. and adj.); compare classical Latin Persēs , Persa (singular) native of Persia, Persian. Compare Middle French, French Perse Persian (1560 as noun, c1590 as adjective). Compare Parsee n. and discussion at that entry.The Old English plural form Persi is after the post-classical Latin plural variant Persi (in some manuscripts of the source translated in quot. eOE). Compare also Old English Perside Persians ( < post-classical Latin Persides (c400), use as noun of nominative plural of classical Latin Persis Persian), and Old English Persware Persians ( < Persa (see below) + -ware suffix). Compare Old English and early Middle English (rare) Persa, Middle English Pers, Peirce, Parce, Middle English and early modern English Perce, Perse, Older Scots Peirs, all as the name of Persia.

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman pers, pearce, perce, perse, peirse, piers and Middle French pers, perse, piers (French pers), (adjective) of a dark blue colour (c1100 in Old French), (noun) cloth of this colour (13th cent. in Old French) < post-classical Latin persus of a dark blue colour (8th cent. in a French source), of uncertain origin (see note below). Compare Old Occitan pers (c1150; Occitan pèrs), Italian perso (a1276). Compare also ( < Middle French) Middle Dutch pers, peers, paers (Dutch paars).In β. forms after post-classical Latin persicum , persecum dark blue colour, cloth of this colour (from 1200 in British sources). Post-classical Latin persus is perhaps to be derived from Persia (see Persian n. and adj.) or classical Latin Persae Persians (see Perse n.¹): luxury fabrics were imported from the Near East already in the ancient world. This derivation is perhaps reinforced by the post-classical Latin form persicum (see above), although this has been alternatively explained as < persica peach n.¹ (itself ultimately from classical Latin Persicus Persian: see Persic adj. and n.). For alternative (and less likely) derivations see Französisches etymol. Wörterbuch at persus. The precise colour denoted has varied at different times and in different languages. Post-classical Latin persus is first attested in the 8th-cent. Reichenau Glosses glossing jacinctinus hyacinth colour. Old French and Middle French pers usually denotes a dark violet colour (in Anglo-Norman it is used to describe the colour of bruised flesh and of brackish water); modern French pers (now only literary) ranges in application from blue-green through blue-grey to blue-violet, according to context (likewise modern Occitan pèrs). Florio (1611) makes Italian perso ‘a darke or blacke mourning colour; some take it for the colour of dead Marioram. Some have also vsed it for a Peach colour.’ (Compare Dante Convito iv. xx. 14 Il perso è un colore misto di purpureo e di nero, ma vince il nero (‘perse is a colour combined from purple and black, but more black’).) Du Cange (at persus) approves of the view of Acarisius that Italian perso was a derivative of persa marjoram, referring to the colour. In modern Italian the word is literary and archaic. See further P. Toynbee ‘The colour perse in Dante and other mediæval writers’ in Dante Studies (1902) 307–14. Dutch paars denotes violet or purple.