Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several spiny Asian shrubs of the genus Astragalus of the pea family, especially A. gummifer, of the Middle East, yielding a gum used in pharmaceuticals, adhesives, and textile printing, and as an emulsifier and thickener in foods.
  • noun The gum of any of these plants.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A mucilaginous substance, the product of several low, spiny shrubs of the genus Astragalus, among them A. gummifer. A. eriostylus, A. adscendens, A. brachycalyx, and A. microcephalus, plants found in the mountains of Asia Minor and neighboring lands.

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

  • noun A kind of gum procured from a spiny leguminous shrub (Astragalus gummifer) of Western Asia, and other species of Astragalus. It comes in hard whitish or yellowish flakes or filaments, and is nearly insoluble in water, but slowly swells into a mucilaginous mass, which is used as a substitute for gum arabic in medicine and the arts. Called also gum tragacanth.

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

  • noun a polysaccharide gum, extracted from several species of leguminous plants of the genus Astragalus, used as a food additive

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

  • noun a gum used in pharmacy, adhesives, and textile printing

Etymologies

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

[Latin tragacantha, from Greek tragakantha : tragos, goat + akantha, thorn, spine.]

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Examples

  • And the colors: I was certain that Martha Stewart, who had recently featured Necco wafers on a wedding cake (historically apt; the pièces montées that made Marie-Antoine Carême perhaps the first star chef, in the early 19th century, were made of gum tragacanth, the base of Necco wafers and still the base of many wedding-cake decorations), would be designing a line of paints around them.

    Sugar and Spice 2009

  • And the colors: I was certain that Martha Stewart, who had recently featured Necco wafers on a wedding cake (historically apt; the pièces montées that made Marie-Antoine Carême perhaps the first star chef, in the early 19th century, were made of gum tragacanth, the base of Necco wafers and still the base of many wedding-cake decorations), would be designing a line of paints around them.

    Sugar and Spice 2009

  • We know about chypre scents being made on the island as early as the 12thOyselets de Chypre Chypre Birds were formed from a paste of labdanum, styrax and calamus, mixed with tragacanth.

    Archive 2006-10-01 Ayala Sender 2006

  • • Gum tragacanth, an exudate from various species of Astralagus shrubs

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

  • Gum tragacanth, a carbohydrate from a West Asian shrub in the bean family Astragalus, has been used

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

  • Gum tragacanth, a carbohydrate from a West Asian shrub in the bean family Astragalus, has been used

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

  • It and gum tragacanth are slightly soluble and eventually dissolve when chewed; they were used in early medicine as carriers that would release drugs slowly.

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

  • • Gum tragacanth, an exudate from various species of Astralagus shrubs

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

  • It and gum tragacanth are slightly soluble and eventually dissolve when chewed; they were used in early medicine as carriers that would release drugs slowly.

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

  • When boiling water is poured over shavings of this wood a clear jelly, resembling tragacanth, is formed and becomes a thick viscid mass; iodine stains it brown, but not a trace of starch is indicated in it.

    Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia 2003

Comments

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  • "Composed of Paste and glued with Tragacanth, the Theme of this Device was an heroic Feat known as 'Callock's Leap'."

    John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk, p 391

    November 10, 2012

  • You have to admit gummifer's a pretty good word to just slip into a definition.

    January 17, 2013

  • "Fine moulding was encouraged by a new ingredient that arrived in the early 1500s: gum tracaganth--or dragon--derived from the sap of a Middle Eastern tree. A nugget about 'the bigness of a beane' was steeped in rosewater until it swelled and mellowed; then it was mixed with sugar, egg white and a drop of lemon juice to form a pliable paste that could be shaped, by hand or with pre-soaked wooden moulds, into the fanciest of shapes."

    --Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 105

    January 9, 2017