ALKANET • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Alkanet

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noun

Alkanet n.

(Chem.) A dyeing matter extracted from the roots of Alkanna tinctoria, which gives a fine deep red color.

(Bot.)

(a)

A boraginaceous herb (Alkanna tinctoria) yielding the dye; orchanet.

(b)

The similar plant Anchusa officinalis; bugloss; also, the American puccoon.

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Etymology of 'Alkanet'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Alkanet" Quotes from Famous Books

... very common at Willow Farm, although I know where to find each one. We will go first down the little stony lane which leads from near the foldyard gate to the cottages where the shepherd and the bailiff live. Here we shall find the Alkanet. It is a perennial, and it blossoms here year after year. I only know one other place in the village where it grows. Like some other flowers we have seen, it is not really a native ...

— Wildflowers of the Farm • Arthur Owens Cooke

... curious passage (its text is faulty and the translation hard) in the story of the Argonauts, where Medea concocts a magic brew. She put divers herbs in it, herbs yielding coloured juices such as safflower and alkanet, and soapwort and fleawort to give consistency or 'body' to the lye; she put in alum and blue vitriol (or sulphate of copper), and she put in blood. The magic brew was no more and no less than a dye, a red or purple dye, and a prodigious deal of chemistry had gone to the making ...

— The Legacy of Greece • Various

Words linked to "Alkanet" : Anchusa officinalis