Elixir definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (19)

American Heritage Dictionary (5)

noun A sweetened aromatic solution of alcohol and water, serving as a vehicle for medicine.
noun See philosophers' stone.
noun A substance believed to maintain life indefinitely. Also called elixir of life.

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Century Dictionary (10)

In alchemy, a soluble solid substance which was believed to have the property of transmuting baser metals into silver or gold and of prolonging life. The great elixir, also called the philosopher's stone, or the red tincture, when shaken in very small quantity into melted silver, lead, or other base metal, was said to transmute it into gold. In minute doses it was supposed to prolong life and restore youth, and was then called the elixir vitæ. The lesser elixir, stone of the second class, or white tincture, was regarded as having these qualities in lesser degree; thus it transmuted baser metals into silver. The word is now often used figuratively. A! nay! lat be; the philosophres stoon, Elixir clept, we sechen faste echoon. Chaucer, Prol. to Canon's Yeoman's Tale, I. 310. He that has once the flower of the sun, The perfect ruby, which we call elixir, … Can confer honour, love, respect, long life; Give safety, valour, yea, and victory, To whom he will. B. Jonson, Alchemist, ii. 1. What enables me to perform this great work is the use of my Obsequium Catholicum, or the grand elixir, to support the spirits of human nature. Guardian, No. 11. The air we breathed was an elixir of immortality. B. Taylor, Lands of the Saracen, p. 89.
In medicine, formerly, a tincture with more than one base; in modern pharmacy, an aromatic, sweetened, spirituous preparation containing small quantities of active medicinal substances. The first object sought in the modern elixir is an agreeable taste, and usually this is attained only by such sacrifices as to render the effect of the medicine almost nil. U.S. Dispensatory, p. 537.
The inmost principle; absolute embodiment or exemplification. [Rare or obsolete.] She is not such a kind of evil as hath any good or use in it, which many evils have, but a distill'd quintessence, a pure elixar of mischief. Milton, Church-Government, ii., Con. A serenity and complacency … infinitely beyond the greatest bodily pleasures, the highest quintessence and elixir of wordly delights. South, Works, I. ii.

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And his elixir is as dangerous to the body politic as would be his listeners with pitchforks instead of their usual 6 pack, bag of potato chips and a barcolounger. — The American Spectator
This elixir is a creamy serum that is light brown almost off white in color.
He will take three grains of wit like the elixir, and, projecting it upon the iron age, turn it immediately into gold. — English Satires
By the word elixir is meant length of days and happiness. — Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians
At the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence. — Great Expectations

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potion · salve · balm · liqueur · nectar · concoction · unguent · laudanum · panacea · tonic · cognac · alchemy

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English, a substance of transmutative properties, from Old French elissir, from Medieval Latin elixir, from Arabic al-'iksīr : al, the + 'iksīr, elixir (probably from Greek xērion, desiccative powder, from xēros, dry).

Century Dictionary (2)

Formerly also elixar; from Middle English elixir = Dutch elixer = Swedish Danish G. elixir, from Old French elixir, French élixir = Portuguese elexir = Italian elisire, from Spanish elixir, elixir, from Arabic el iksīr, the philosopher's stone: el, al, the; iksīr, philosopher's stone, by some derived from Kasara, break, break the edge, destroy, but prob. (like some other Arabic terms of alchemy: see alchemy, alembic, limbeck) of Greek origin: from Greek ξηρός, also ξερός, dry, perhaps akin to χερσός, χερρός, dry: see Chersus, chersonese.
from elixir, n.

elixir

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