Violet-red, a bright tone of red-violet, has been a Crayola color since 1949. The color pale red-violet (identical to the web color pale violet red) is displayed at left. This color is a pale tone of red-violet.

Red-violet is a rich color of high medium saturation about 3/4 of the way between red and magenta, closer to magenta than to red. It is classified in color theory as one of the purple colors - a non-spectral color between red and violet that is a deep version of a color on the line of purples on the CIE chromaticity diagram. Both its saturation and brightness falling short of 100%, red-violet is not a pure chroma. There is a color of similar hue that, however, that comes close to being a pure chroma: process magenta. The pure chroma color composed of equal parts of magenta and red is called rose.

In the usage of artists, red-violet is equivalent to purple. However, although the color "purple" is inaccurately used by many people as a synonym for violet or a color close to violet, professional artists who use the RYB color wheel generally use the term "purple" to specifically refer to a pigment color that is equivalent to red-violet.