heliotrope

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several plants of the genus Heliotropium, especially H. arborescens, native to Peru and having small, highly fragrant purplish flowers. Also called turnsole.
2. n. The garden heliotrope.
3. n. Any of various plants that turn toward the sun.
4. n. See bloodstone.
5. n. A moderate, light, or brilliant violet to moderate or deep reddish purple.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In astronomy, an instrument for showing when the sun arrives at the solstitial points.
2. n. A mirror arranged with a telescope and sights so as to flash a reflection of the sun to a great distance. The instrument is used in geodetic triangulation to mark a station. See heliograph, 1.
3. n. A plant of the genus Heliotropium, of the natural order Boraginaceæ. The species are herbs or shrubs, mostly natives of the warmer parts of the world. They have alternate leaves and small purplish or lilac flowers usually disposed in scorpioid cymes. One species, H. Europæum, is a common European weed. H. Peruvianum, the Peruvian heliotrope, has long been a favorite garden-plant, on account of the fragrance of its flowers. The name has also been given to a composite plant. Also called turnsol.
4. n. The bluish-purple or pinkish-lilac color of some flowers of the heliotrope.
5. n. A mineral, a subspecies of quartz, of a deep-green color, peculiarly pleasant to the eye. It is usually variegated with blood-red or yellowish dots of jasper, and is more or less translucent. Also called bloodstone.—False heliotrope, Tournefortia heliotropoides. See Tournefortia.—
6. n. A direct coal-tar color of the disazo type, derived from dianisidine. It dyes unmordanted cotton reddish violet in an alkaline salt bath.

Wiktionary

1. n. botany A plant that turns so that it faces the sun.
2. n. botany Particularly, a purple-flowered plant of the species Heliotropium arborescens.
3. n. A light purple or violet colour.
4. n. The fragrance of heliotrope flowers.
5. n. mineralogy A bloodstone (a variety of quartz).
6. n. surveying An instrument, employed in triangulation, that uses a mirror to reflect sunlight toward another, very distant, surveyor.
7. adj. Light purple or violet.
8. adj. Keeping one’s face turned toward the sun.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Anc. Astron.) An instrument or machine for showing when the sun arrived at the tropics and equinoctial line.
2. n. (Bot.) A plant of the genus Heliotropium; -- called also turnsole and girasole. Heliotropium Peruvianum is the commonly cultivated species with fragrant flowers.
3. n. (Geodesy & Signal Service) An instrument for making signals to an observer at a distance, by means of the sun's rays thrown from a mirror.
4. n. (Min.) See Bloodstone (a).

WordNet 3.0

1. n. green chalcedony with red spots that resemble blood