Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Turnsole

Turn′sole′, n. [F. tournesol, It. tornasole; tornare to turn (LL. tornare) + sole the sun, L. sol. See Turn, Solar, a., and cf. Heliotrope.] [Written also turnsol.] 1. (Bot.) (a) A plant of the genus Heliotropium; heliotrope; — so named because its flowers are supposed to turn toward the sun. (b) The sunflower. (c) A kind of spurge (Euphorbia Helioscopia). (d) The euphorbiaceous plant Chrozophora tinctoria.

2. (Chem.) (a) Litmus. [Obs.] (b) A purple dye obtained from the plant turnsole. See def. 1 (d).

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.