orchil

orchil noun: any of several lichens, especially those of the genera Roccella and Lecanora.

Image: Norbert Nagel, Mörfelden-Walldorf, Germany, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

orchil (countable and uncountable, plural orchils)

Any of several lichens, especially those of the genera Roccella and Lecanora.

Synonyms:

orchella weed, archil lichen
The purple dye, orcein, extracted from them (especially Lecanora tartarea) and often used as substitute for Tyrian purple.

Synonyms:

lacmus, orcein

Synonyms of orchil

orchella weed
archil lichen
lacmus
orcein

Forms of orchil

plural	orchils
alternative form	archil
alternative form	archall
alternative form	orchel
alternative form	orchal

Origin of orchil

From Middle English orchell, from Old French orchel, orseil, from Old Catalan orxella (influenced by dialectal Arabic [script needed] ('urjālla)), from Italian oricello, from Latin ōricilla, diminutive of ōricula (variant of auricula), both diminutives of auris (“ear”)) + illa (a double diminutive suffix) or from auris (“ear”) + cula + illa. The name of the dye was influenced by the visual resemblance of the lichen used in production to a small ear.

Questions about orchil

What does orchil mean?: Orchil means any of several lichens, especially those of the genera Roccella and Lecanora.
What part of speech is orchil?: Orchil is a noun.
What is the plural of orchil?: The plural of orchil is orchils.

Words near orchil in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: orchil (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “orchil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/orchil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.