Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • (Bot.) The seed of the wild licorice (Abrus precatorius) used by the people of India for beads in rosaries and necklaces, as a standard weight, etc.; -- called also jumble bead.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Abrus precatorius, a legume native to Indonesia with long, pinnate-leafleted leaves, whose toxic seeds ("jequirity bean") may be used as beads or in percussion instruments.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The flying pieces of glass injected the poison as by a myriad of hypodermic needles -- the highly poisonous toxin of abrin, product of the jequirity, which is ordinarily destroyed in the stomach but acts powerfully if injected into the blood.

    The Treasure-Train 1908

  • And the inflammation on her hand was not from a shard of broken glass, as she had imagined, but from the sliver of a jequirity seed containing abrin—from America.

    Day of the Dandelion Peter Pringle 2007

  • It was not a shard of glass; it was a splinter from a jequirity seed containing abrin—from America.

    Day of the Dandelion Peter Pringle 2007

  • Connstein, Hoyer and Wartenburg's work with castor seeds, have made similar experiments with jequirity seeds (_Abrus peccatorius_) containing the enzyme abrin, emulsin from crushed almonds, the leaves of

    The Handbook of Soap Manufacture H. A. Appleton

  • Late though it was, in the laboratory Kennedy set to work examining the dust which he had swept up by the vacuum cleaner, as well as the jequirity beans he had taken from Mrs. Anthony's jewel-case.

    The Treasure-Train 1908

  • "You remember," she cried, breathlessly, "you said that a jequirity bean was sent to Captain Shirley?"

    The Treasure-Train 1908

  • Did the same explanation shed any light on the mystery of the nautch - girl and the jequirity bean sent to Shirley?

    The Treasure-Train 1908

  • Shirley died of jequirity poisoning, or rather of the alkaloid in the bean.

    The Treasure-Train 1908

  • Kennedy continued looking at the remainder of the jequirity beans and a liquid he had developed from some of them.

    The Treasure-Train 1908

  • Had it been the same person who had sent the single jequirity bean?

    The Treasure-Train 1908

Comments

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  • I keep about a cup of the reddish-orange and black jequirity beans in a lidded antique snuff jar, a souvenir collected years ago during a visit to Sanibel Island in southern Florida. One day, I'll drill them and fashion a necklace or a rosary.

    December 30, 2010

  • As long as you don't get really hungry and eat them. They're beans!

    December 30, 2010

  • Some beans are colored bright red and black for a reason - an advertisement that they are poison. Like monarch butterflies and coral snakes.

    December 30, 2010

  • But kidney beans are red and they're not poisonous. The fibbers!

    I didn't know you couldn't eat monarch butterflies. I'll watch out for those buggers from now on.

    December 30, 2010

  • Fixed the comment - not red and/or black, but red and black.

    December 30, 2010

  • Ah, I gotcha.

    But! *tries to think of something red and black and good for you*

    But...

    Alright then.

    December 30, 2010

  • Kidney beans are poisonous if not cooked properly, i.e. rolling boil for at least 10 minutes. Seeing as you generally require a lot longer cooking to even make them palatable, it's not a problem.

    December 30, 2010

  • BTW, rambutans - of which I just ate 6 for afternoon tea - have a deep red skin with black(or green)-tinged hairs. Picture.

    December 30, 2010

  • I can only get rambutans in a can, imported. But now and again an Asian market has fresh lychees - these and longans are in the plant family Sapindaceae.

    December 30, 2010

  • Ladybirds!

    December 30, 2010

  • A.C. Milan (Silvio Berlusconi's team) have often made me a bit nauseous.

    December 30, 2010

  • When I was in high school there was a cafe downtown called The Red and the Black. It didn't stay open long.

    Hm. Maybe that's where I caught stendhal's syndrome (and here I was, blaming sionnach's list).

    Edit: Maybe the place was just called the Red and Black Cafe. Time and snarkiness might have caused me to remember an extra the.

    December 30, 2010

  • Was there a Stendhalian theme to the cafe, other than its name? Waiters in pantaloons? Petits-fours on the menu?

    December 30, 2010

  • No petits-fours.... Some assumed that it actually got its name from the red and black flag of anarcho-syndicalism, though an easier explanation was that it was run by alumni of my high school, where the school colors were red and black.

    Of course, as I think back on those particular alumni, from that particular school, anarcho-syndicalism might be more plausible.

    December 31, 2010