Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A drug mixed with sugar and water or honey into a pasty mass suitable for oral administration.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In pharmacy, a medicine composed of powders or other ingredients, incorporated with some conserve, honey, or syrup, originally made in a form to be licked by the patient.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Med.) A medicine composed of powders, or other ingredients, incorporated with some convserve, honey, or sirup; a confection. See the note under
confection .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun medicine Any preparation of a
medicine mixed withhoney or similar in order to make it morepalatable to swallow.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Maijûn, a kind of electuary, in which both men and women indulge to excess.
Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction John Davenport 1833
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Take of my electuary with a spoon after supping, and wash it down with a sherbet made of rose conserve; but first sup off mutton and house pigeon plentifully seasoned and hotly spiced.
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She did his bidding and, when she served up the meats, he ate the evening meal, after which he called for the bowl and ate of the electuary.
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“Very weakly, sir, since I took the electuary,” answered the patient; “it neighboured ill with the two spoonfuls of pease-porridge and the kirnmilk.”
The Abbot 2008
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The European equivalent, “Venice treacle,” (Theriaca Andromachi) is an electuary containing many elements.
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Now there was in the bazar a man who was Deputy Syndic of the brokers and was given to the use of opium and electuary and green hashish. 28 He was called Shaykh Mohammed Samsam and being poor he used to wish Shams al-Din good morrow every day.
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Having cut some bulbs or squill, boil in water, and when well boiled, throw this away, and having poured in more water, boil until it appear to the touch soft and well-boiled; then triturate finely and mix roasted cumin, and white sesames, and young almonds pounded in honey, form into an electuary and give; and afterwards sweet wine.
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Fernelius and others; diasena, diapolypodium, diacassia, diacatholicon, Wecker's electuary de Epithymo, Ptolemy's hierologadium, of which divers receipts are daily made.
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He invented an electuary for the cure of fluxes, and in 1730, in The Danger of
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Trikatu is another traditional Ayurvedic electuary commonly made and used by people living near water.
THE NATURAL REMEDY BIBLE JOHN LUST 2003
brtom commented on the word electuary
He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion.
Joyce, Ulysses, 5
December 31, 2006
bard commented on the word electuary
A drug mixed with sugar and water or honey into a pasty mass suitable for oral administration. Flavoured cough syrup and medicines for kids are electuaries.
June 17, 2008
yarb commented on the word electuary
Citation on onion.
January 1, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word electuary
I think this word can also refer to a book containing recipes for remedies, in the same way that an "Herbal" can be a book containing information about plants. See the following hideously titled book:
"Electuarium Novum, or, a new Cordial, Alexiterial and Restorative ELECTUARY; Which may serve for a succedaneum to the grand Theriaca Andromachi. The Theriaca examined, with Reasons humbly offered why the Troches should be ejected, as well as a great Number of the rest of the Ingredients. A New Correction of Theriaca most humbly proposed, and, with due Deference, submitted to the superior and impartial Judgment of the Royal College of Physicians; and dedicated to the most Honoured the President, the justly Honoured the Censors, with their most worthy Brethren the Elect, and the rest of the Fellows of that most Honourable SOCIETY."
By the Reverend Mr. Harward, a Licentiate of the Royal College, and Lecturer of the Royal Chappel at Boston in New-England.
BOSTON: Printed by B. Green, and Sold by the Booksellers. 1732.
Price Two Shillings
January 28, 2009
knitandpurl commented on the word electuary
""You require the use of my prism ship and my fungal electuaries. I remain uncertain of the benefits to myself.""
"The Return of the Fire Witch" by Elizabeth Hand, p 225 of Errantry: Strange Stories
May 1, 2013
chained_bear commented on the word electuary
"He drinks hippocras, clarry, and vernage*
Hot spices to kindle his lust,
And many an electuary full fine,
Such as the accursed monk, damned Constantine,
Has written in his book,
De Coitu--To eat them all he did not eschew.
... Spices were among the premier aphrodisiacs of the day, not least thanks to the author January turned to for his stimulants, 'damned Constantine.' More conventionally known as Constantine the African (ca. 1020-1087), Chaucer's 'cursed monk' was in fact one of the major intellectual figures of the age, his work occupying a central place in the canon of medical studies in European universities until the end of the fifteenth century."
"*Strong spiced and sweetened wines."
--Jack Turner, _Spice: The History of a Temptation_ (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 184
Another historical note can be found in comment on unguent.
December 2, 2016