moxa

[ mok-suh ]

noun

a flammable substance or material obtained from the leaves of certain Chinese and Japanese wormwood plants, especially Artemisia moxa.
this substance or a similar one of cotton, wool, or the like, placed on the skin usually in the form of a cone or cylinder and ignited for use as a counterirritant.

Origin of moxa

1670–80; by uncertain mediation <Japanese mogusa, equivalent to mo(y)e burn + -gusa, combining form of kusa herb

Words Nearby moxa

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use moxa in a sentence

It is really the moxa of South America under an altered name.
Opuscula | Robert Gordon Latham
Only these portions named might not have a moxa applied to them.
Psychotherapy | James J. Walsh
Others extended the value of the moxa beyond these affections.
Psychotherapy | James J. Walsh
In these tubes they sometimes placed lighted tobacco and blew down upon the part affected after the manner of a moxa, I suppose.
The Medicine-Men of the Apache. (1892 N 09 / 1887-1888 (pages 443-604)) | John G. Bourke
moxa were cones of cotton wool or other substances which were placed upon the skin and burned.
Bloodletting Instruments in the National Museum of History and Technology | Audrey Davis

British Dictionary definitions for moxa

moxa

/ (ˈmɒksə) /

noun

a downy material obtained from various plants and used in Oriental medicine by being burned on the skin as a cauterizing agent or counterirritant for the skin
any of various plants yielding this material, such as the wormwood Artemisia chinensis

Origin of moxa

C17: anglicized version of Japanese mogusa, contraction of moe gusa burning herb

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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