heliotrope

A heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens; sense 1.2).

A surveying heliotrope (c. 1878; sense 5) from the B. A. Colonna collection (NOAA).

Borrowed from French héliotrope, from Ancient Greek ἡλιοτρόπιον (hēliotrópion), from ἥλιος (hḗlios, “sun”) + τρέπω (trépō, “turn”). See also Old English sunnfolgend.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈhiː.li.ətɹəʊp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhi.li.əˌtɹoʊp/
• Hyphenation: he‧lio‧trope

heliotrope (countable and uncountable, plural heliotropes)

1. (botany) A plant that turns so that it faces the sun.
   1. Particularly, a purple-flowered plant of the species Heliotropium arborescens.
      • 1870, B[enjamin] Disraeli, chapter XXIX, in Lothair. […], volume III, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., OCLC 1247608154, page 326:

        As they entered now, it seemed a blaze of roses and carnations, though one recognised in a moment the presence of the lily, the heliotrope, and the stock.

2. A light purple or violet colour.

   heliotrope:  

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, page 623:

     [T]he face of Dr. Willi Dingkopf, framed by a haircut in violation of more than one law of physics, and a vivid necktie in fuchsia, heliotrope, and duck green […]

3. The fragrance of heliotrope flowers.
   • 1908, Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (The Novels and Tales of Henry James), volume (please specify |volume=I or II), New York edition, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, OCLC 4447781; republished as The Portrait of a Lady (EBook #283), United States: Project Gutenberg, 1 September 2001:

     […] 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. (mineralogy) 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.

• (Heliotropium arborescens): cherry pie, common heliotrope
• (rock): bloodstone

• (direction): heliotropism

heliotrope (comparative more heliotrope, superlative most 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 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 57395299:

     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.

• (colour): heliotrope cyanosis

• winter heliotrope

• (direction): heliotropic

• Appendix:Colors