upas
Americannoun
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the poisonous milky sap of a large tree, Antiaris toxicaria, of the mulberry family, native to tropical Asia, Africa, and the Philippine Islands, used for arrow poison.
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the tree itself.
noun
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a large moraceous tree of Java, Antiaria toxicaria, having whitish bark and poisonous milky sap
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the sap of this tree, used as an arrow poison
Etymology
Origin of upas
1775–85; < Javanese: poison, especially dart poison
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.
From upas to coco de mer, an arboreal odyssey.
From Nature • Jun. 5, 2018
Another was that Britain's tax, although set upas an import duty, seemed in effect an income tax�and therefore in violation of an Anglo-American agreement designed to prevent double taxation on incomes.
From Time Magazine Archive
Suspicion is the soil in which prejudice grows, and prejudice is the upas tree in whose shade reason fails and justice dies.
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 10 (of 12) Dresden Edition?Legal by Ingersoll, Robert Green
Here we were shown a specimen of the upas tree: it was growing close to a small stone fountain in the vicinity of some straggling huts.
From Borneo and the Indian Archipelago with drawings of costume and scenery by Marryat, Frank
A few other great cities have their lesser Wall streets, and where Weston & Hill, like a deadly upas tree, flourished for a time, a mimic Wall Street existed.
From Rockhaven by Munn, Charles Clark
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
