Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various, usually poisonous perennial herbs of the genus Aconitum, having tuberous roots, palmately lobed leaves, blue or white flowers with large hoodlike upper sepals, and an aggregate of follicles.
- n. The dried leaves and roots of some of these plants, which yield a poisonous alkaloid that was formerly used medicinally.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The plant wolf's-bane or monk's-hood, Aconitum Napellus. It is used in medicine, especially in cases of fever and neuralgia. See
Aconitum. Nepâl aconite consists of the roots of A. ferox and probably other species indigenous in the Himalayas; it is also called bikh, bish, and bisk. Winter aconite is a ranunculaceous plant, Eranthis hiemalis, a native of Italy, and one of the earliest spring flowers. - n. An extract or tincture of this plant, used as a poison and as a medicine.
Wiktionary
- n. The herb wolfsbane, or monkshood; any plant of the genus Aconitum, all the species of which are poisonous.
- n. An extract or tincture obtained from Aconitum napellus, used as a poison and medicinally.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The herb wolfsbane, or monkshood; -- applied to any plant of the genus Aconitum (tribe Hellebore), all the species of which are poisonous.
- n. An extract or tincture obtained from Aconitum napellus, used as a poison and medicinally.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of various usually poisonous plants of the genus Aconitum having tuberous roots and palmately lobed leaves and blue or white flowers
Etymologies
- French aconit, from Latin aconītum, from Greek akonīton, perhaps from neuter sing. of akonītos, without dust or struggle : a-, without; see a-1 + konis, dust.
Examples
“Pluto said he might, if he could overcome Cerberus without weapons; and this he did, struggling with the dog, with no protection but the lion's skin, and dragging him up to the light, where the foam that fell from the jaws of one of the three mouths produced the plant called aconite, or hellebore, which is dark and poisonous.”
“But they must remember that it was almost impossible to detect certain vegetable poisons, such as aconite and atropia, without minute chemical analysis.”
“I also ran around outside with the Little Bird for a while and took this picture of our first flowers – winter aconite.”
“The garden has countless seasons, from the first peeking up of the winter aconite through the early spring snows through the last carrots pulled from under their quilts of leaves in late December.”
“Among the minor bulbs, safe choices are snowdrops (Galanthus); winter aconite (Eranthis); Scilla, Muscari, Chionodoxa and Hyacinthoides hispanica.”
“Even then, aconite was supposedly difficult to detect unless the medical examiner chemist was looking for it specifically.”
“It was easy enough to get the small packet of powdered aconite root past the metal detectors and bomb-detection dogs.”
“Winter aconite has always been the first bulb to bloom in winter.”
The Washington Post: 20 questions to test your gardening skills
“And there, pushing up through the dead autumn leaves, would always be the first tight globes of winter aconite, gathering themselves into a carpet that would very soon burst into these yellow cups.”
“It would normally be at this point that I would intervene with some suitably shallow, sneering, right-of-centre barb about how the aconite patch could do with a good carpeting of agent orange, but I will refrain and enjoin with diplo and p-w in a most heartful way, urging you to keep it up, in your most excellent Women's Realm way.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘aconite’.
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Murdered, you say?
Terms of homicide; weapons, poisons, synonyms &c.
slaughtered, goes and gets her..., done in, rubbed out, bumped off, malice aforethought, marble baluster, lead spoon, stone idol, atropine, burned, clipped and 90 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
PossibleUnderscore Causes burning, tingling, and numbness of mouth, throat, and stomach, eventually affecting the entire body. It develops into a stomach ache, dizziness, prostration and convulsions. You die in a few hours if you have a teaspoon full. Aug 18, 2009
chained_bear "He knew the powers not just of ordinary opiates but also of poisons such as aconite, from the root of the plant monkshood; atropine, from belladonna (or deadly nightshade); and rhus toxin from poison ivy. In large doses each could prove fatal, but when administered in tiny amounts, typically in combination with other agents, such compounds could produce a useful palette of physical reactions that mimicked the symptoms of known diseases...."
—Erik Larson, Thunderstruck (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006), 33 Jul 6, 2009
sionnach Tee-hee! Mar 19, 2008
mollusque You need a sneakoscope, c_b! Mar 19, 2008
chained_bear Damn! You actually made me go and look at the copyright date, you sneak! You... you inspissated sneak! Mar 19, 2008
sionnach This is *so* plagiarized from J.K. Rowlings' description of potions class at Hogwarts. Mar 19, 2008
chained_bear "In his youth he had turned to a number of allies against the intolerable boredom ... of insomnia: poppy and mandragora being the most obvious, seconded by the inspissated juice of aconite or of henbane, by datura stramonium, creeping skerit, leopard's bane."
--P. O'Brian, The Yellow Admiral, 24 Mar 18, 2008