Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A mixture of water and honey that becomes mead when fermented.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A liquor consisting of honey diluted with water, fermented or unfermented: in the former case called
vinous hydromel , and alsomead .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A liquor consisting of honey diluted in water, and after fermentation called
mead .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
liquor consisting ofhoney diluted inwater ;mead prior tofermentation .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun honey diluted in water; becomes mead when fermented
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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By using hydromel without ptisans, instead of any other drink, you will generally succeed in the treatment of such diseases, and fall in few cases; but in what instances it is to be given, and in what it is not to be given, and wherefore it is not to be given, — all this has been explained already, for the most part.
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One must determine by such marks as these, when sweet, strong, and dark wine, hydromel, water and oxymel, should be given in acute diseases.
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But there are cases in which hydromel, strongly acid, does not promote expectoration, but renders it more viscid and thus does harm, and it is most apt to produce these bad effects in cases which are otherwise of a fatal character, when the patient is unable to cough or bring up the sputa.
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But if taken intermediate between oxymel and hydromel, in small quantity, it promotes expectoration from the change which it occasions in the qualities of these drinks, for it produces, as it were, a certain overflow.
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Pounding meconium, pouring on it water, and straining, and mixing flour, and baking into a cake, with the addition of boiled honey, give in affections of the anus and in dropsy; and after eating of it, let the patient drink of a sweet watery wine, and diluted hydromel prepared from wax: or collecting meconium, lay it up for medicinal purposes.
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And boiled hydromel has a much more elegant appearance than the unboiled, being clear, thin, white, and transparent, but I am unable to mention any good quality which it possesses that the other wants.
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But if he shall use ptisan for a draught, and drink afterward hydromel, he will feel full, flatulent, and uncomfortable in the viscera of the hypochondrium; but if the hydromel be taken before the draught, it will not have the same injurious effects as if taken after it, but will be rather beneficial.
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If you wish to ascertain if a woman be with child, give her hydromel to drink when she is going to sleep, and has not taken supper, and if she be seized with tormina in the belly, she is with child, but otherwise she is not pregnant.
Aphorisms 2007
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But unmixed hydromel, rather than the diluted, produces frothy evacuations, such as are unseasonably and intensely bilious, and too hot; but such an evacuation occasions other great mischiefs, for it neither extinguishes the heat in the hypochondria, but rouses it, induces inquietude, and jactitation of the limbs, and ulcerates the intestines and anus.
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And, with regard to the augmentation of the dose, if the disease be of a drier nature than one had supposed, one must not give more of it, but should give before the draught of ptisan, either hydromel or wine, in as great quantity as may be proper; and what is proper in each case will be afterward stated by us.
knitandpurl commented on the word hydromel
"Etienne swallowed the potion that had been placed in front of him, a potion very probably made of bidet water, the nectar of brothels and the hydromel of whorehouses."
Witch Grass by Raymond Queneau, translated by Barbara Wright, p 298 of the NYRB paperback
November 8, 2010