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heliotrope|ˈhiːlɪəʊtrəʊp, ˈhɛlɪəʊtrəʊp|
Forms: α. 1 eliotropus, 4 elitropium, -ius, eliotropia, 6 helytropium, heliotropion, -ius, 6–7 -ium; see also heliotropian n. β. 6– heliotrope.
[Formerly in Lat. form hēliotropium, etc., a. Gr. ἡλιοτρόπιον (also ἡλιοτρόπος) a plant which turns its flowers and leaves to the sun, heliotrope; also a green stone streaked with red, bloodstone, and a kind of sundial; f. ἥλιος sun + -τροπος turning, τρέπειν to turn. In current form, a. F. héliotrope (16th c. in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. a. A name given to plants of which the flowers turn so as to follow the sun; in early times applied to the sunflower, marigold, etc.; now, a plant of the genus Heliotropium (N.O. Ehretiaceæ or Boraginaceæ), comprising herbs or shrubs with small clustered purple flowers; esp. H. Peruvianum, commonly cultivated for its fragrance.
αc1000Sax. Leechd. I. 254 Ðeos wyrt þe man eliotropus and oðrum naman siᵹilhweorfa nemneð. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. liv. (1495) 635 Elitropium is a drye herbe and..it beeryth and tornyth the leyf abowte wyth the meuynge of the sonne. 1549Compl. Scot. vi. 57 Siklyik, ther is ane eirb callit helytropium, the quhilk the vulgaris callis soucye; it hes the leyuis appin as lang as the soune is in our hemispere, and it closis the leyuis, quhen the soune passis vndir our orizon. c1590Greene Fr. Bacon xvi. 58 Apollo's heliotropion then shall stoop And Venus hyacinth shall vail her top. 1603B. Jonson King's Coronation Entertain. Wks. (Rtldg.) 528/2 Her chaplet [was] of Heliotropium, or turnsole.
βa1626Bacon Wks. (1857) III. 832 Flowers of heliotrope. 1645G. Daniel Poems Wks. 1878 II. 32 The Heliotrope may live with the last Sun. 1664Evelyn Kal. Hort. (1729) 215 Star-wort, Heliotrop, French Marigold. 1796H. Hunter tr. St.-Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) II. 89 The French or Peruvian heliotrope. 1861G. J. Whyte-Melville Good for Nothing II. 169 The sweet heliotrope exhaled her dying fragrance ere she sank to decay.
attrib.1676Marvell Mr. Smirke I bis, As the Heliotrope Flower that keeps its ground, but wrests its Neck in turning after the warm Sun.
b. fig. (Also attrib.)
1603B. Jonson Sejanus iv. v, Good Heliotrope! Is this your honest man? Let him be yours so still; he is my knave. 1669Addr. Yng. Gentry Eng. 99 With free expansions, and heliotrope conversions to that Eternal light. 1746–7Hervey Medit. (1818) 149 Let us all be heliotropes (if I may use the expression) to the Sun of Righteousness.
c. Applied, with qualifying words, to other plants, as false or summer heliotrope, Tournefortia heliotropioides; winter heliotrope, Nardosmia (Petasites, or Tussilago) fragrans.
1866Treas. Bot. 777 Nardosmia, a name under which the Winter Heliotrope..and some allied Northern species of Tussilago, have been separated generically. 1884Miller Plant-n., Summer Heliotrope.
d. A shade of purple like that of the flowers of the heliotrope. Also attrib.
1882World 21 June 18/1 A white cotton with violet sprig and bonnet of heliotrope. 1886Truth XXI, It is lined with heliotrope satin. 1887Daily News 5 July 5/5 A costume of that peculiar mauve known as heliotrope.
e. A scent imitating that of the heliotrope.
1865Public Opinion 7 Jan. 20 Many scents, however, are imitations—heliotrope, for instance, having no relation to that flower.
2. Min. A green variety of quartz, with spots or veins of red jasper; also called bloodstone; anciently credited with various ‘virtues’, as that of stanching blood, rendering the wearer invisible, etc. (As to the origin of the name see quot. 1601.)
α1390Gower Conf. III. 112 There sitten five stones mo..Jaspis and elitropius. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvi. xl. (1495) 566 Eliotropia is a precyous stone and is grene and spronge wyth red dropes and veynes of colour of blood. 1601Holland Pliny II. 627 The pretious stone Heliotropium..is a deepe green in maner of a leeke..garnished with veins of bloud: the reason of the name Heliotropium is this, For that if it be throwne into a pale of water, it changeth the raies of the Sun by way of reuerberation into a bloudie colour..Magitians..say, that if a man carrie it about him..he shall goe inuisible.
β1587Golding tr. Solinus' Polyhistor (1590) S ij b (Stanf.), The precious stone called Heliotrope. 1740tr. Barba's Metals 120 The Heliotrope in his fine green Substance hath Veins of the purest Blood. 1814Cary Dante's Inf. xxiv. 91 Nor hope had they of crevice where to hide, Or heliotrope to charm them out of view. 1884F. J. Britten Watch & Clockm. 215 Chrysoprase, Heliotrope, and Jasper are forms of silica either amorphous, translucent, or opaque.
3. An ancient kind of sun-dial.
1669Gale Crt. Gentiles i. i. vii. 36 Phenicians..communicated the knowledge of the Heliotrope taken from Ahaz's dial. 1753Chambers Cycl. Supp., Heliotrope, Heliotropium, among the antients, an instrument or machine, for shewing when the sun arrived at the tropics and the æquinoctial line. 1789White Selborne xliv, Two heliotropes; the one for the winter, and the other for the summer solstice. 1875Knight Dict. Mech., Heliotrope..The ancient Greek polos or heliotrophion was a basin in the middle of which was a perpendicular staff or finger, whose shadow indicated on lines the twelve parts of the day.
4. An apparatus with a movable mirror for reflecting the rays of the sun, used for signalling and other purposes, esp. in geodesic operations: cf. heliograph n. 4.
1822Gentl. Mag. ii. 358 The inventor of the Heliotrope..had full proof of the great advantage to be derived from it. 1858Merc. Marine Mag. V. 145 Of all signals, the heliotrope—a movable mirror, placed so as to be directed by a telescope—is the most perfect. |