Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A tropical southeast Asian shrubby vine (Piper cubeba) having spicy, berrylike fruits, heart-shaped leaves, and small flowers in cylindrical spikes.
- noun The dried, unripe, berrylike fruit of this plant, used in perfumery, pharmaceuticals, and commercial flavorings.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The small spicy berry of the Piper Cubeba, a climbing shrub of Java and other East Indian islands. It resembles a grain of pepper, but is somewhat longer. In aromatic warmth and pungency cubebs are far inferior to pepper; but they are much valued for their use in diseases of the urinary system and of the bronchial tubes. Sometimes called
cubeb pepper .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The small, spicy berry of a species of pepper (
Piper Cubeba ; in (Med.),Cubeba officinalis ), native in Java and Borneo, but now cultivated in various tropical countries. The dried unripe fruit is much used in medicine as a stimulant and purgative.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The tailed pepper, Piper cubeba; an
Indonesian plant cultivated for itsberries andessential oil .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a cigarette containing cubeb
- noun tropical southeast Asian shrubby vine bearing spicy berrylike fruits
- noun spicy fruit of the cubeb vine; when dried and crushed is used medicinally or in perfumery and sometimes smoked in cigarettes
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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He found abundant cinnamon in Tibet and Malabar; saw ginger growing along the Yellow River; reported a busy trade in ginger, sugar, and galingale in the ports of Bengal; and witnessed locally grown pepper, nutmeg, cubeb, and cloves on sale in Java.
Delizia! John Dickie 2008
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Sapphire offers a combination of no less than ten natural botanicals--more than any other gin--including grains of paradise, almonds, lemon peel, licorice, juniper berries, cubeb berries, orris, coriander, angelica and cassia bark.
These Are A Few Of My Favorite Gins... Nick Passmore 2006
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Cubebs one of my favourite spices of all time - I am in cubeb withdrawal
Even in a little thing gillpolack 2005
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Lungwort, pleurisy root, cubeb berries, and goldenseal are other healing herbs for the lungs.
THE NATURAL REMEDY BIBLE JOHN LUST 2003
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Under its tamarind glaze, the Mills bomb turns out to be luscious pepsin-flavored nougat, chock-full of tangy candied cubeb berries, and a chewy camphor-gum center.
Gravity's Rainbow Pynchon, Thomas 1978
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I was thinking of a good way to do it, the other day: start on these cubeb cigarettes, and they'd kind of disgust me with smoking. ''
Babbitt 1922
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I was thinking of a good way to do it, the other day: start on these cubeb cigarettes, and theyd kind of disgust me with smoking.
Chapter 30 1922
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I went for a walk with Bettina and Jasper shortly after my talk with Jasper, leaving Tish with the evening paper and Aggie inhaling a cubeb cigarette, her hay fever having threatened a return.
Tish 1916
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And Miss Aggie, although she is very sweet, is always smoking cubeb cigarettes for hay fever, and it looks terrible!
Tish 1916
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The neighbors do not know they are cubeb, and, anyhow, that's a habit, mother.
Tish 1916
yarb commented on the word cubeb
There was a strange medicinal odor--as of cubeb cigarettes--in the air.
- Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware, ch. 9
August 1, 2008
bilby commented on the word cubeb
"A new vessel, made of earthenware and glass, was accordingly introduced, and filled with sweet calamus, cubeb seed, roots of both aristolochies, great and small cardamom, ginger, long-pepper, caryophylleae, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmegs, calamite storax, benzoin, aloes-wood and roots, one ounce of fragrant sandal, and three quarts of half brandy and water; the vessel was then set on hot ashes in order to force forth and upwards the fumigating vapour, and the cell was kept closed. As soon as the suffumigation was done, the Incubus came, but never dared enter the cell."
- Sinistrari, Ludovico M. & Summers, Montague, 'Demoniality'.
July 21, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word cubeb
I'm gonna use this playing Boggle. :)
July 21, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word cubeb
"Cubeb, or 'tailed' pepper, Piper cubeba,, is a pepper look-alike native to the Indonesian archipelago, popular in medieval times as a seasoning, medicine, and aphrodisiac."
--Jack Turner, _Spice: The History of a Temptation_ (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 98n.
December 2, 2016