Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A universal remedy; a panacea.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A remedy for all diseases; a universal remedy; a panacea; specifically, a kind of soft purgative electuary so called.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A remedy for all diseases; a panacea.
WordNet 3.0
- n. hypothetical remedy for all ills or diseases; once sought by the alchemists
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin, from Greek katholikon, generic description, from neuter of katholikos, universal; see catholic.
Examples
“There is no catholicon or universal remedy I know, but this, which though nauseous to queasy stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is nectar, and a pleasant potion of im mortality.”
“The most gentle purges to begin with, are [4255] senna, cassia, epithyme, myrabolanea, catholicon: if these prevail not, we may proceed to stronger, as the confection of hamech, pil.”
“And at a given moment one of these, hitherto dormant and unsuspected, would suddenly begin to brew, and go on growing till he was all one senseless panic, blind flight the only catholicon.”
“There is no _catholicon_ or universal remedy I know, but this, which though nauseous to queasy stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is nectar, and”
“Unfortunately, I have no catholicon for every industrial ill -- but the political drug-stores are full of 'em.”
“It is now only exceptionally that the cantharus is found doing service as a holy water font, mainly at Mount Athos, where the phiala of the monastery of Laura stands near the catholicon in front of the entrance and is covered by”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 7: Gregory XII-Infallability
“If we knew of any chemical preparation by which we could change the color of our skins and straighten our hair we might hope to bring about the desired consummation at once, but alas, there is no catholicon for this ill, no mystic concoction in all the pharmacies of earth to work this miracle of color.”
“If we knew of any chemical preparation by which we could change the color of our skins and straighten the kinks in our hair, we might hope to bring about the desired consummation at once, but alas, there is no catholicon for this ill, no mystic concoction in all the pharmacies of earth to work”
“A man who is not a hopelessly bad critic, though he may not have in him the _catholicon_ of critical goodness, may fail to appreciate _La Morte Amoureuse_ because of its dreaminess and supernaturality and all-for-loveness; _Carmen_ because Carmen shocks him; _La Venus d'Ille_ because of its _macabre_ tone; _Les Jeune-France_ because of their _goguenarderie_ or _goguenardise_.”
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century
“After long and wearied deliberations extending over whole weeks, and while a nation's anxious eyes, hopeful and expectant, were rivetted upon them, they agreed upon a political catholicon -- one-sided, as usual, and unjust to the South.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘catholicon’.
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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...
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pseudoscience
craniology, craniometer, cranioscopy, phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholic, choleric, homeopathy, allopathy, metoposcopy, panacea, catholicon and 17 more...
reesetee And here I thought this word meant something else.... Mar 6, 2008
chained_bear "These coca leaves, which he had first encountered in South America, were his present, purely personal, catholicon, and although he traveled with enough, packed in soft leather bags, to last him twice round the world, he was remarkably abstemious..."
--Patrick O'Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation, 135 Mar 6, 2008