The Collaborative International Dictionary
Indigo \In"di*go\, n.; pl. Indigoes. [F. indigo, Sp. indigo, indico, L. indicum indigo, fr. Indicus Indian. See Indian.]
A kind of deep blue, one of the seven prismatic colors.
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(Chem.) A blue dyestuff obtained from several plants belonging to very different genera and orders, such as, the woad, Isatis tinctoria (family Cruciferae), Indigofera suffroticosa, Indigofera tinctoria (family Leguminosae), Indigofera Anil, Nereum tinctorium, Polygonum tinctorium Ait. (family Polygonaceae), etc.; called also natural indigo. It is a dark blue earthy substance, tasteless and odorless, with a copper-violet luster when rubbed. Indigo does not exist in the plants as such, but is obtained by decomposition of the glycoside indican.
Note: Commercial indigo contains the essential coloring principle indigo blue or indigotine, with several other dyes; as, indigo red, indigo brown, etc., and various impurities. Indigo is insoluble in ordinary reagents, with the exception of strong sulphuric acid.
Chinese indigo (Bot.), Isatis indigotica, a kind of woad.
Wild indigo (Bot.), the American herb Baptisia tinctoria which yields a poor quality of indigo, as do several other species of the same genus.
Wiktionary
n. The American herb (taxlink Baptisia tinctoria species noshow=1), which yields a poor quality of indigo, as do several other species of the same genus.
WordNet
n. any of several plants of the genus Baptisia [syn: false indigo]
Usage examples of "wild indigo".
The jeans were pre-Event, her shirt was Murray's Mills product, Olmec cotton spun and dyed with wild indigo here on Island, the shoes hand-cobbled from Alban leather.
He recognized the ones weavers in the Bearkiller territory and its neighbors had produced from wild indigo, safflower, berries, and some new to him as well.
The terraced slopes of the mountains, ablaze with wild indigo, closed in upon him and widened out.
For fevers, he knew that wild indigo, echinacea, myrrh, or garlic were good, but that cleavers—.
Quickly they left behind the concrete of Central and rose up into wooded slopes filled with bowers of jasmine, wild indigo, daphne, and rhododendrons.