Meaning & use
anil
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountablespecialist
A West Indian shrub from which indigo was once made.
Grammar: A countable botanical word: an anil plant.
Patterns
- an anil plant
Planters once grew anil on hillside estates.
The anil shrub has small pink flowers.
A botanist sketched the anil beside the road.
noununcountablearchaic
The blue dye made from this plant, now called indigo.
Grammar: A historical or technical word.
Patterns
- dyed with anil
The cloth was dyed deep blue with anil.
Traders shipped barrels of anil across the sea.
Old recipes mention anil for coloring linen.
Word forms
| plural | anils |
|---|
Common combinations
- anil plant
- The anil plant grows in warm climates.
- anil dye
- Anil dye gave the fabric its color.
- cultivate anil
- Colonists cultivated anil for export.
- anil blue
- The painting used a strong anil blue.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- aniline noun
- a chemical first obtained from indigo
- anilin noun
- an alternative spelling of aniline
- indigo noun
- the deep blue dye and color
Commonly confused: anil or Anil?
anil vs Anil
With a capital letter, Anil is a common given name in South Asia and is unrelated to the plant.
Practice
In old trade records, ___ refers to the shrub and dye from which indigo was made.
Choose one answer.
Anil is the older word for the dye plant and the blue dye. Aloe, anise and anvil are real words but unrelated to dyes.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “anil”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.