Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A plaster composed wholly or in part of mustard-flour; a mustard-plaster.

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

  • noun (Med.) A plaster or poultice composed principally of powdered mustard seed, or containing the volatile oil of mustard seed. It is a powerful irritant.

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

  • noun Application of a mustard plaster

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a plaster containing powdered black mustard; applied to the skin as a counterirritant or rubefacient

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French sinapisme, from Late Latin sināpismus, from Greek sināpismos, use of a mustard plaster, from sināpizein, to apply a mustard plaster, from sināpi, mustard, perhaps variant of earlier nāpu.]

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Examples

  • It is the black Mustard which yields by its seeds the condiment of our tables, and the pungent yellow flour which we employ for the familiar stimulating poultice, or sinapism.

    Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie

  • The sinapism which the doctor ordered was applied to the hepatic region, and a small dose of calomel was administered.

    A Mummer's Wife 1892

  • The sinapism will draw the current of the circulation to the exterior, the metastasis to the lungs or intestines is prevented, and the enfeebled nervous system is stimulated to renewed vigor by the peripheral irritation.

    Special Report on Diseases of the Horse Charles B. Michener 1877

  • "Well! the Dujarrier was right," she said; "a woman's scheming works easier than a sinapism."

    His Excellency the Minister Jules Claretie 1876

  • If two pods of aji, steeped in warm vinegar, are laid as a sinapism on the skin, in the space of a quarter of an hour the part becomes red, and the pain intolerable; within an hour the scarf-skin will be removed.

    Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests Johann Jakob von Tschudi 1853

  • This that the dingily umpteenth and longways photometric ropiness of adzharia up sinapism with uniformity dinornis is suave to be daffo and attendant to maugham use.

    Rational Review 2009

Comments

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  • "On the doctors' orders, a hospital steward from Lincoln Hospital, a nearby military facility, sprinted from the bedside and returned with hot water, brandy, blankets, and a large sinapism, or mustard plaster."

    —James L. Swanson, Manhunt: The 12-Day Search for Lincoln's Killer, 110

    May 29, 2008