There are many variations of the color purple, an example of which is shown below. In common English usage, purple is a range of shades that falls between red and blue. However, the meaning of the term purple is not well defined. Even among native English speakers there is confusion about the meaning of the terms lilac and lilac. Many English speakers in the US refer to the blue dominant spectral color beyond blue as violet, but many English speakers in the UK refer to the same color as violet. The full range of colors between red and blue is called violet in some authoritative British texts, while the same range of colors is called violet in other texts. Confusion about the broad meanings of the terms purple and violet is compounded when other languages and historical texts are included. Because this Wikipedia page contains contributions from authors from different countries and different native languages, this Wikipedia page may not be consistent in its use of the terms lilac and lilac. In formal color theory, purple colors often refer to colors on the purple line on the CIE chromaticity diagram (or colors that can be derived from colors on the purple line), i.e. any color between red and purple, except red or purple . The first recorded use of purple as a color name in English dates back to 975 AD.