Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various plants that move or are believed to move in response to the sun, especially the Mediterranean species Chrozophora tinctoria.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A plant of the genus Heliotropium; heliotrope; -- so named because its flowers are supposed to turn toward the sun.
- noun The sunflower.
- noun A kind of spurge (
Euphorbia Helioscopia ). - noun The euphorbiaceous plant
Chrozophora tinctoria . - noun obsolete Litmus.
- noun A purple dye obtained from the plant turnsole. See def. 1 (d).
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
heliotrope ; so named because its flowers are supposed to turn toward the sun. - noun The
sunflower . - noun A kind of
spurge (Euphorbia helioscopia). - noun The
euphorbiaceous plant Chrozophora tinctoria. - noun A
purple dye obtained from Chrozophora tinctoria. - noun chemistry, obsolete
litmus
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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At another table, two women were re-feathering roasted peacocks with feathers colored by saffron and yellow turnsole.
Soul of the Fire Goodkind, Terry 1999
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Others were colored green with parsley, yellow with egg yolk, red with sandalwood or purple with turnsole.
The Pillars of the Earth FOLLETT, Ken 1989
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Take small beer and vinegar, and parboil your beef in it, let it steep all night, then put in some turnsole to it, and being baked,
The accomplisht cook or, The art & mystery of cookery Robert May
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Some you may colour with saffron, turnsole, or green wheat, and blew-bottles for blew.
The accomplisht cook or, The art & mystery of cookery Robert May
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Then also to the white jelly one race of ginger pare'd and slic't & three blades of large mace, to the red jelly 2 nutmegs, as much in quantity of cinamon as nutmegs, also as much ginger; to the turnsole put also the same quantity, with a few whole cloves; then to the amber or yellow color, the same spices and quantity.
The accomplisht cook or, The art & mystery of cookery Robert May
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At this period it is colorless, and clear as water; its taste is slightly saccharine; its odor resembles that of whey; it reddens turnsole paper.
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Take four pair of calves feet, a knuckle of veal, a good fleshie capon, and prepare these things as is said in the crystal jelly: boil them in three gallons of fair water, till six quarts be wasted, then strain it in an earthen pan, let it cool, and being cold pare the bottom, and take off the fat on the top also; then dissolve it again into broth, and divide it into 4 equal parts, put it into four several pipkins, as will contain five pints a piece each pipkin, put a little saffron into one of them, into another cutchenele beaten with allum, into another turnsole, and the other his own natural white; also to every pipkin a quart of white-wine, and the juyce of two lemons.
The accomplisht cook or, The art & mystery of cookery Robert May
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The Sap of the Birch tree reddens turnsole intensely.
hernesheir commented on the word turnsole
Sp. girasol, sunflower.
November 29, 2011
rolig commented on the word turnsole
What a lovely word!
November 29, 2011
chained_bear commented on the word turnsole
"Boiled blood was used to color foods black, and a sandalwood-like bark known as sanders or mulberries or red alkanet were employed to turn them red or purple. Wheat starch, egg whites or crushed almonds were used for white; mint, spinach and parsley for green, and for blue the turnsole, or heliotrope, was mashed. Most desirable of all, egg yolks, dandelion petals or musty saffron were used to endore pie crusts and pottages. Saffron was a costly statement, with more than 50,000 hand-harvested crocus flowers needed for each pound of dried stamens. The fields around Saffron Walden in Essex must have been a mirage of smiling colour when in bloom, delighting thousands who could never hope to taste the kind of cooking in which they were used."
--Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 58
January 8, 2017