Definitions

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

  • noun obsolete A gum resin obtained from the root of Opopanax chironium, formerly used in medicine.
  • noun A perfume made from the gum resin of various trees.
  • noun The opopanax tree, Acacia farnesiana, an acacia of America.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin opopanax, from Hellenistic Greek ὀποπάναξ (opopanax), from Ancient Greek ὀπός (opos, "vegetable juice") + πάναξ (panax).

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Examples

  • Three loves – ancient loves – vanish in tears … I did this in four days in a room of blue satin, in an overheated apartment, full of different smells, where the opopanax and cyclamen gave me a slight fever conducive towards production or even towards reproduction.

    Icons of erotic art #4 « Jahsonic 2007

  • Three loves – ancient loves – vanish in tears … I did this in four days in a room of blue satin, in an overheated apartment, full of different smells, where the opopanax and cyclamen gave me a slight fever conducive towards production or even towards reproduction.

    02 « November « 2007 « Jahsonic 2007

  • For many days now he had lain in bed in a room exuding silver, crimson, and electric light, smelling of opopanax and of cigars.

    Villa Rubein, and other stories John Galsworthy 1900

  • For many days now he had lain in bed in a room exuding silver, crimson, and electric light, smelling of opopanax and of cigars.

    Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works John Galsworthy 1900

  • So the purveyors continued to mount to their apartment, and Ralph, in the course of his frequent nights from it, found himself always dodging the corners of black glazed boxes and swaying pyramids of pasteboard; always lifting his hat to sidling milliners 'girls, or effacing himself before slender vendeuses floating by in a mist of opopanax.

    The Custom of the Country Edith Wharton 1899

  • All over Europe, with the various tincture of differing national habit and custom, this was the mark of the sophistication of the poets, sometimes delicately and craftily exhibited, but often, as in foreign examples which will easily occur to your memory, rankly, as with the tiresome persistence of a slightly stale perfume, an irritating odour of last night's opopanax or vervain.

    Some Diversions of a Man of Letters Edmund Gosse 1888

  • Under credit cards poor went to slaw art pedestrian and got a horribly art opopanax, a pgce and bribable milklike bugology.

    Rational Review 2009

  • The has amblyopic the way mulloway, opopanax and insulin is granduncle, sarcasm from the assisted to the bardic slumber.

    Rational Review 2009

  • In light of recent events, the author’s description of fenugreek is prescient, The characteristic odor of fenugreek extract is a celery-like spiciness, a coumarinic-balsamic sweetness and an intense, almost sickeningly strong, lovage-like or opopanax-like note of extreme tenacity.

    Eye on Smell Culture: Fenugreek Michelle Krell Kydd 2009

  • In light of recent events, the author’s description of fenugreek is prescient, The characteristic odor of fenugreek extract is a celery-like spiciness, a coumarinic-balsamic sweetness and an intense, almost sickeningly strong, lovage-like or opopanax-like note of extreme tenacity.

    Archive 2009-02-01 Michelle Krell Kydd 2009

Comments

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  • Sweet myrrh. From Wikipedia:

    A consumable resin can be extracted from opoponax by cutting the plant at the base of a stem and sun-drying the juice that flows out. Though people often find the taste acrid and bitter, the highly flammable resin can be burned as incense to produce a scent somewhat like balsam or lavender. The resin has been used in treatment of spasms — and, before that, as an emmenagogue in treatment of asthma, chronic visceral infections, hysteria and hypochondria. Opoponax resin is most frequently sold in dried irregular pieces, though tear-shaped gems are not uncommon.

    Opoponax is also used in the production of certain perfumes, and is the fragrance of one of the popular Diptyque candles.

    February 7, 2007

  • So, I'm still confused. Is it spelled ANAX or ONAX? Wiki shows apopanax chironum, then goes on to spell it with an "O" in the rest of the entry.

    July 18, 2007

  • Wait, this may help--from Webster's Revised Unabridged. Seems that when you're referring to the plant (Opoponax Chironum), it's spelled with a second "o," but when you're referring to the inspissated juice (once used in medicine), it's spelled with an "a." So they're both correct, depending on how you're using the word.

    July 18, 2007

  • Ah ha! The ole inspissated rule! Shoulda knowed!

    July 18, 2007

  • "He raised the opopanax feather and said, 'Hear what I say! Would ye hear, I beg!'" From Stephen King's Wolves of the Calla.

    June 20, 2011