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heliotropic

[hee-lee-uh-trop-ik, -troh-pik]

adjective Biology.

turning or growing toward the light.

Origin:
1870–75; helio- + -tropic

Related forms

he·li·o·trop·i·cal·ly, adverb

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To heliotropic

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Heliotropic is always a great word to know.

So is homogenesis. Does it mean:

reproduction in which the offspring resemble the parents and undergo the same cycle of development

the subdivision of an organism or of an organ into more or less equivalent parts; cell division

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Collins

World English Dictionary

heliotropism (ˌhiːlɪˈɒtrəˌpɪzəm)

—n
	the growth of plants or plant parts (esp flowers) in response to the stimulus of sunlight, so that they turn to face the sun

heliotropic

—*adj*

helio'tropically

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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American Heritage

Science Dictionary

heliotropism

(hē'lē-ŏt'rə-pĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key
The growth or movement of a fixed organism, especially a plant, toward or away from sunlight. Heliotropism can be easily seen in sunflowers, which slowly turn their large flowers so that they continually face the sun.

heliotropic adjective (hēl'lē-ə-trō'pĭk, -trŏp'ĭk)

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Matching Quote

"There is a logic of language and a logic of mathematics. The former is supple and lifelike, it follows our experience. The latter is abstract and rigid, more ideal. The latter is perfectly necessary, perfectly reliable: the former is only sometimes reliable and hardly ever systematic. But the logic of mathematics achieves necessity at the expense of living truth, it is less real than the other, although more certain. It achieves certainty by a flight from the concrete into abstraction. Doubtless, to an idealist, this would seem to be a more perfect reality. I am not an idealist. The logic of the poet—that is, the logic of language or the experience itself—develops the way a living organism grows: it spreads out towards what it loves, and is heliotropic, like a plant."

-Thomas Merton

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heliotropic

he·li·o·trop·ic