English
heliotrope
Pronunciation
  • (America) IPA: /ˈhiːli.əˌtɹoʊp/
Noun

heliotrope

  1. (botany) A plant that turns so that it faces the sun.
    1. (botany) Particularly, a purple-flowered plant of the species Heliotropium arborescens.
      • 1870, Benjamin Disraeli, Lothair
        As they entered now, it seemed a blaze of roses and carnations, though one recognized in a moment the presence of the lily, the heliotrope, and the stock.
  2. A light purple or violet colour.
     
  3. The fragrance of heliotrope flowers.
    • 1881, Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
      ... he had always smelt so much more of heliotrope than of gunpowder.
    • 1906, O. Henry, The Furnished Room
      Ransacking the drawers of the dresser he came upon a discarded, tiny, ragged handkerchief. He pressed it to his face. It was racy and insolent with heliotrope; [...]
  4. (mineral) A bloodstone (a variety of quartz).
  5. (surveying) An instrument, employed in triangulation, that uses a mirror to reflect sunlight toward another, very distant, surveyor.
Synonyms Related terms Translations
  • German: Heliotrop, Vanilleblume, Sonnenwende
  • Russian: гелиотро́п
Adjective

heliotrope

  1. Light purple or violet.
    • 1904, Jerome K. Jerome, Tommy and Co.
      Lady in a heliotrope dress with a lace collar, three flounces on the skirt?
    • 1917, Zane Grey, Wildfire
      And following that was a tortuous passage through a weird region of clay dunes, blue and violet and heliotrope and lavender, all worn smooth by rain and wind.
  2. Keeping one’s face turned toward the sun.
    • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick
      while still as on the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle; his hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial; sat due eastward for the earliest sun.
Related terms

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
Offline English dictionary