Wiktionary
a. Having a violet colour similar to the gentian flower. n. 1 (context chemistry English) Also known as crystal violet, a chemical dye used in the Gram staining test, and is also a fungicide. Chemically: hexamethyl pararosaniline chloride, C25H30ClN3 2 A violet colour similar to the gentian flower.
WordNet
n. a green crystal (violet in water) used as a dye or stain or bactericide or fungicide or anthelmintic or burn treatment [syn: crystal violet]
Usage examples of "gentian violet".
Her eyes were gentian violet, made even more violet by the light blue of her upper lids, a light blue that seemed a gift of nature and not of a colorist's brush.
There was nothing that a painful week in hospital and plenty of gentian violet or tannic acid jelly wouldn't cure.
The area around his eyes was coated with a thick layer of gentian violet.
It was an act comparable, perhaps, to throwing gentian violet on the Mona Lisa.
Miss Teatime decided that they had surgical connotations: she noted iodine (for cuts), picric acid (burns), and gentian violet (athlete’.
The sky had darkened from bruise blue to gentian violet, and it was only a few minutes after six thirty.
Automatically she looked for any cuts or scratches that might need a swipe from the bottle of gentian violet that she always kept in the truck.
When I was finished he doused everything in the gentian violet solution I've been putting on the calf that cut itself on wire.