Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A substance obtained from the fruit of the Ecballium Elaterium, or squirting cucumber, which, if it is gathered a little before it ripens, and the juice gently expressed, deposits a green sediment, which is collected and dried.
- noun In botany, a fruit consisting of three or more dehiscent cocci, as in
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A cathartic substance obtained, in the form of yellowish or greenish cakes, as the dried residue of the juice of the wild or squirting cucumber (
Ecballium agreste , formerly calledMomordica Elaterium ).
Etymologies
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Examples
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So, again, _Elaterium_ was used by Hippocrates to signify various internal applications, especially purgatives, of a violent and drastic nature (from the word ἐλαύνω, _agito_, _moveo_, _stimulo_), but by succeeding authors it was exclusively applied to denote the active matter which subsides from the juice of the wild cucumber.
A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive John Stuart Mill 1839
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Burfting open with a fpring; as in Hura y Dentaria, Cardamine y Manor dica Elaterium.
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And we see also in Animals, that their blood may be compos'd of Divers very Differing Mixt Bodies, since we find it observ'd that divers Sea-Fowle tast rank of the Fish on which they ordinarily feed; and _Hipocrates_ himself Observes, that a Child may be purg'd by the Milke of the Nurse, if she have taken _Elaterium_; which argues that the purging Corpuscles of the Medicament Concurr to make up the Milke of the Nurse; and that white Liquor is generally by
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