elaterium
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of elaterium
C16: from Latin, from Greek elatērion squirting cucumber, from elatērios purgative, from elaunein to drive
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Elaterin is extracted from elaterium by chloroform and then precipitated by ether.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 2 "Ehud" to "Electroscope" by Various
Amid the wayside rubbish grows one of the gourd family, Ecbalium elaterium, commonly called the squirting cucumber, whose fruit—a rough and extremely bitter little cucumber—is the size of a date.
From The Life of the Spider by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
The chief vegetable purgatives are aloes, colocynth, gamboge, jalap, scammony, seeds of castor-oil plant, croton-oil, elaterium, the hellebores, and colchicum.
From Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology by W. G. Aitchison (William George Aitchison ) Robertson
It forms colourless scales which have a bitter taste, but it is highly inadvisable to taste either this substance or elaterium.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 2 "Ehud" to "Electroscope" by Various
The juice of the unripe fruit, when expressed and allowed to stand, deposits elaterium as a green sediment with an acrid taste, a faint odour, and powerful cathartic properties.
From The New Gresham Encyclopedia Volume 4, Part 2: Ebert to Estremadura by Various
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
