Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A dark resinous extract obtained from several tropical American woody plants, especially Chondrodendron tomentosum or certain species of Strychnos, used as an arrow poison by some Indian peoples of South America.
- n. A purified preparation or alkaloid obtained from Chondrodendron tomentosum, used in medicine and surgery to relax skeletal muscles.
- n. A plant yielding curare.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Same as curari.
Wiktionary
- n. A plant, Strychnos toxifera, known for the toxin it produces.
- n. A substance containing the alkaloid D-tubocurarine, used historically as a muscle relaxant during surgery.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A black resinoid extract prepared by the South American Indians from the bark of several species of Strychnos (Strychnos toxifera, etc.). It sometimes has little effect when taken internally, but is quickly fatal when introduced into the blood, and used by the Indians as an arrow poison.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a toxic alkaloid found in certain tropical South American trees that is a powerful relaxant for striated muscles
Etymologies
- Karib “Mawa Cure”, referring the Mawa vine, or Strychnos toxifera (Wiktionary)
- Portuguese or Spanish curaré, both of Cariban and Tupian origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In his textbook on physiology, Professor Holmgren calls curare the "most cruel of poisons," because an animal under its influence "it changes instantly into a living corpse which hears and sees, and knows everything, but is unable to move a single muscle; and under its influence no creature can give the faintest indication of its hopeless condition.”
An Ethical Problem Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals
“Amongst the most curious of the discoveries made by Humboldt, we must mention that of the "curare," the virulent poison which he saw manufactured by the Catarapeni and Maquiritare Indians, and a specimen of which he sent to the Institute with the "dapiche," a variety of”
Celebrated Travels and Travellers Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century
“Such is the quickness with which the "curare" does its work!”
The Forest Exiles The Perils of a Peruvian Family in the Wilds of the Amazon
“a single engagement seventy of Hojeda's companions fell under the arrows of the savages, fearful weapons steeped in "curare," so fatal”
Celebrated Travels and Travellers Part I. The Exploration of the World
“It contained a secret compartment with a needle and enough curare to kill a captured pilot instantly.”
The Wall Street Journal: A Spy's Ill-Fated Flight From Pakistan
“Hammett and his followers, Chandler wrote, "gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not with hand-wrought duelling pistols, curare, and tropical fish.”
The Washington Post: Review of "Think of a Number," a thriller by John Verdon
“No curare lipstick touched the president, even if Joe Biden seemed the closest to the blond ambition danger.”
The Huffington Post: Phil Bronstein: When's A Crash Like A Train Wreck? When We Can't Look Away...
“I used no anesthetic other than the curare,which was mostly a muscle relaxant.”
““I prepared a fast acting curare-based anesthetic injection and hid it on me, then waited for the Doctor to return.””
“And as doctors later found out, many of these problems could be avoided with a judicious shot of a paralytic drug like curare, famously used as the poison on the end of a dart.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘curare’.
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•Unexpected Pronunciation, Now! with ...
Inspired to publicity by the conversation at segway. Thanks, pals!
boatswain, clapboard, waistcoat, victuals, forecastle, solder, colonel, ensign, worcestershire sauce, creatinine, coelacanth, banal and 79 more...
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Tolland's list
Those I've come across and try to keep fresh within my mind.
clandestine, dysphoric, indictive, vigil, fractious, assiduous, indefatigable, ubiquitous, insidious, paroicous, aplomb, sangfroid and 654 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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The word collector
My collection of words that are intriguing, but don't fit my other lists.
snailery, aplasia, postulant, aigrette, caravel, frigate, capeskin, suffusion, schist, varlet, sepulchral, anisotropy and 317 more...
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one
for the ones that roll off the tongue and reverberate in my mind
gazette, meridem, ante, mustard, fabricate, china, ceramic, kitties, strapper, droog, horrorshow, milk and 88 more...
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skipvia's Words
syzygy, egg, lossy, catharsis, impuissance, truckle, obsequious, sequoia, sonot khazoot, alizarin, sepulchre, klister and 434 more...
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Say What?
Words for which the pronunciation is not immediately obvious.
phthalo, chthonic, cwm, iron, phlegmy, queue, cerulean, apophthegm, awry, myrrh, ewe, gouache and 11 more...
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to covet
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