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  1. cubeb love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A tropical southeast Asian shrubby vine (Piper cubeba) having spicy, berrylike fruits, heart-shaped leaves, and small flowers in cylindrical spikes.
  2. n. The dried, unripe, berrylike fruit of this plant, used in perfumery, pharmaceuticals, and commercial flavorings.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. The small spicy berry of the Piper Cubeba, a climbing shrub of Java and other East Indian islands. It resembles a grain of pepper, but is somewhat longer. In aromatic warmth and pungency cubebs are far inferior to pepper; but they are much valued for their use in diseases of the urinary system and of the bronchial tubes. Sometimes called cubeb pepper.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The tailed pepper, Piper cubeba; an Indonesian plant cultivated for its berries and essential oil.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The small, spicy berry of a species of pepper (Piper Cubeba; in (Med.), Cubeba officinalis), native in Java and Borneo, but now cultivated in various tropical countries. The dried unripe fruit is much used in medicine as a stimulant and purgative.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a cigarette containing cubeb
  2. n. tropical southeast Asian shrubby vine bearing spicy berrylike fruits
  3. n. spicy fruit of the cubeb vine; when dried and crushed is used medicinally or in perfumery and sometimes smoked in cigarettes

Etymologies

  1. From French cubèbe, from Arabic كبابه (kabābah). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English cubebe, from Old French, from Medieval Latin cubēba, from Arabic dialectal kubāba, variant of Arabic kabāba. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “He found abundant cinnamon in Tibet and Malabar; saw ginger growing along the Yellow River; reported a busy trade in ginger, sugar, and galingale in the ports of Bengal; and witnessed locally grown pepper, nutmeg, cubeb, and cloves on sale in Java.”

    Simon & Schuster: Delizia!

  • “Sapphire offers a combination of no less than ten natural botanicals--more than any other gin--including grains of paradise, almonds, lemon peel, licorice, juniper berries, cubeb berries, orris, coriander, angelica and cassia bark.”

    Forbes: These Are A Few Of My Favorite Gins...

  • “Cubebs one of my favourite spices of all time - I am in cubeb withdrawal”

    Even in a little thing

  • “Lungwort, pleurisy root, cubeb berries, and goldenseal are other healing herbs for the lungs.”

    Simon & Schuster: THE NATURAL REMEDY BIBLE

  • “Under its tamarind glaze, the Mills bomb turns out to be luscious pepsin-flavored nougat, chock-full of tangy candied cubeb berries, and a chewy camphor-gum center.”

    Gravity's Rainbow

  • “I was thinking of a good way to do it, the other day: start on these cubeb cigarettes, and they'd kind of disgust me with smoking. '”

    Babbitt

  • “I was thinking of a good way to do it, the other day: start on these cubeb cigarettes, and they’d kind of disgust me with smoking.”

    Chapter 30

  • “I went for a walk with Bettina and Jasper shortly after my talk with Jasper, leaving Tish with the evening paper and Aggie inhaling a cubeb cigarette, her hay fever having threatened a return.”

    Tish

  • “And Miss Aggie, although she is very sweet, is always smoking cubeb cigarettes for hay fever, and it looks terrible!”

    Tish

  • “The neighbors do not know they are cubeb, and, anyhow, that's a habit, mother.”

    Tish

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. Java pepper
  1. tailed pepper

hypernyms (8)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. cigarette
  1. fag
  1. butt
  1. cigaret
  1. coffin nail
  1. pepper vine
  1. true pepper
  1. fruit

reverse dictionary (5)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. cubebene
  1. quibib
  1. cubeb
  1. pepper
  1. cubeb cigarette

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. Spice

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘cubeb’.

Comments

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  • chained_bear I'm gonna use this playing Boggle. :) Jul 21, 2009

  • bilby "A new vessel, made of earthenware and glass, was accordingly introduced, and filled with sweet calamus, cubeb seed, roots of both aristolochies, great and small cardamom, ginger, long-pepper, caryophylleae, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmegs, calamite storax, benzoin, aloes-wood and roots, one ounce of fragrant sandal, and three quarts of half brandy and water; the vessel was then set on hot ashes in order to force forth and upwards the fumigating vapour, and the cell was kept closed. As soon as the suffumigation was done, the Incubus came, but never dared enter the cell."
    - Sinistrari, Ludovico M. & Summers, Montague, 'Demoniality'. Jul 21, 2009

  • yarb There was a strange medicinal odor--as of cubeb cigarettes--in the air.

    - Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware, ch. 9 Aug 1, 2008

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‘cubeb’ has been looked up 1803 times, added to 11 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 11.