Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An eastern Mediterranean plant (Convolvulus scammonia) having large roots that yield a resin formerly used as a cathartic.
- noun A Mexican plant (Ipomoea orizabensis) yielding a similar resin.
- noun A cathartic preparation obtained from these resins.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A plant, Convolvulus Scammonia, which grows abundantly in Syria and Asia Minor.
- noun A gum-resin consisting of the inspissated root-juice of this plant.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A species of bindweed or Convolvulus (
C. Scammonia ). - noun An inspissated sap obtained from the root of the
Convolvulus Scammonia , of a blackish gray color, a nauseous smell like that of old cheese, and a somewhat acrid taste. It is used in medicine as a cathartic.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Convolvulus scammonia, a twining
perennial bindweed native to the eastern part of theMediterranean basin , whosejuice has been used inmedicine as scammonium.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun tropical American morning glory
- noun resin from the root of Convolvulus scammonia
- noun twining plant of Asia Minor having cream-colored to purple flowers and long thick roots yielding a cathartic resin
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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He made use of the narcotics mandragora, henbane, and probably also poppy-juice, and as a laxative used greatly a vegetable substance called "mercury," beet and cabbage, and cathartics such as scammony and elaterium!
Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine James Sands Elliott
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The cruelty of these impious men goes even to the length that, thinking the wretches have eaten gold or silver, they either put scammony in their drink and force them to vomit or void their vitals, or – and this is unspeakable – they stretch asunder the coverings of all the intestines after ripping open their stomachs with a blade and reveal with horrible mutilation whatever nature keeps secret.
'The Crusades' 2010
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The cruelty of these impious men goes even to the length that, thinking the wretches have eaten gold or silver, they either put scammony in their drink and force them to vomit or void their vitals, or – and this is unspeakable – they stretch asunder the coverings of all the intestines after ripping open their stomachs with a blade and reveal with horrible mutilation whatever nature keeps secret.
'The Crusades' 2010
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The cruelty of these impious men goes even to the length that, thinking the wretches have eaten gold or silver, they either put scammony in their drink and force them to vomit or void their vitals, or – and this is unspeakable – they stretch asunder the coverings of all the intestines after ripping open their stomachs with a blade and reveal with horrible mutilation whatever nature keeps secret.
'The Crusades' 2010
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Taken into the inferior parts are clysters strong or weak, suppositories of Castilian soap, honey boiled to a consistence; or stronger of scammony, hellebore, &c.
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If there be borborygmi, with bilious stools, purge moderately with scammony; but with regard to the treatment otherwise, administer as few drinks and draughts as until there be some amendment, and the disease is past the fourteenth day.
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Grosseteste uses the example, drawn from Avicenna, of the causal claim that scammony of itself causes the discharge of red bile.
Robert Grosseteste Lewis, Neil 2007
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I let pass how for a minorative or gentle potion he took four hundred pound weight of colophoniac scammony, six score and eighteen cartloads of cassia, an eleven thousand and nine hundred pound weight of rhubarb, besides other confuse jumblings of sundry drugs.
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002
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The organ was indeed the strangest that ever eyes beheld; for the pipes were of cassia fistula in the cod; the top and cornice of guiacum; the bellows of rhubarb; the pedas of turbith, and the clavier or keys of scammony.
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002
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I let pass how for a minorative or gentle potion he took four hundred pound weight of colophoniac scammony, six score and eighteen cartloads of cassia, an eleven thousand and nine hundred pound weight of rhubarb, besides other confuse jumblings of sundry drugs.
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002
qms commented on the word scammony
From hearing that man on the stump
I acquired a gut full of Trump.
A healer examined me
And dosed me with scammony
For a purgative triumphant dump.
May 22, 2016