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  1. henbane love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A poisonous Eurasian plant (Hyoscyamus niger) having an unpleasant odor, sticky leaves, and funnel-shaped greenish-yellow flowers. It is a source of the drug hyoscyamine.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A plant of the genus Hyoscyamus, natural order Solanaceæ. Common henbane is H. niger, a native of Europe and northern Asia, and adventitious in the United States. It is a coarse, erect bienuial herb, found in waste ground and loose dry soil, having soft, clammy, hairy foliage of a disagreeable odor, pale yellowish-brown flowers streaked with purple veins, and a five-toothed calyx. The leaves are used in medicine, and resemble belladonna in their action. They yield hyoscine and hyosciamine. When taken in any considerable quantity, the herb acts as a deadly poison to man and most animals, and is especially destructive to domestic fowls (whence the name). Swine are said to eat it with impunity. Also called stinking nightshade and hog's-bean.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A poisonous plant, Hyoscyamus niger, used sometimes as a drug that causes at least hallucinations, dilated pupils, restlessness, and flushed skin.
  2. n. Any other plant of the genus Hyoscyamus.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Bot.) A plant of the genus Hyoscyamus (Hyoscyamus niger). All parts of the plant are poisonous, and the leaves are used for the same purposes as belladonna. It is poisonous to domestic fowls; whence the name. Called also, stinking nightshade, from the fetid odor of the plant. See hyoscyamus.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. poisonous fetid Old World herb having sticky hairy leaves and yellow-brown flowers; yields hyoscyamine and scopolamine

Etymologies

  1. From hen + bane. (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “Celebrity (their word, he means nothing to me) chef Antony Worrall Thompsonis quoted in a magazine interview about watercress and other wild foods saying that the weed henbane is "great in salads".”

    Waiter, there's poison in my soup

  • “According to the BBC: "Healthy & Organic Living magazine's website has now issued an urgent warning that" henbane is a very toxic plant and should never be eaten ".”

    Waiter, there's poison in my soup

  • “Do you know when I was ill I was made to take henbane, which is a drug that has the power to make one's eyes magnify like a microscope.”

    Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter

  • “17H21NO4, extracted from plants such as henbane and used primarily as a mydriatic and sedative, and to treat nausea and prevent motion sickness.”

    Word of the Day

  • “Some claim to like the smell of henbane; the mind boggles, quite literally – sniffing it too deeply can cause dizziness.”

    The Guardian: Country diary: Elton, Cambridgeshire

  • “The smell, slightly scary, but medicinal henbane plant.”

    The Guardian: Country diary: Elton, Cambridgeshire

  • “On a patch of sandy ground stands a solitary henbane.”

    The Guardian: Country diary: Elton, Cambridgeshire

  • “Hawley Harvey Crippen, also known as Dr Crippen, is thought to have used seeds from the henbane plant to kill his wife in 1910.”

    Waiter, there's poison in my soup

  • “There are various recipes for dwale from the Middle Ages, and I think they generally feature hemlock, henbane, opium and various other ingredients.”

    Early medieval surgical knowledge

  • “Re operating on patients without anaesthesia, results of examinations at the medieval Augustinian monastery and hospital at Soutra shows that the monks used opium, black henbane and hemlock, presumably to deaden pain and during surgical procedures, and it seems to me quite possible that earlier healers would also have known of and used herbs in similar ways.”

    Early medieval surgical knowledge

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hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. herbaceous plant
  1. Herb

same context (24)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. ratsbane
  2. Arnica
  3. aconite
  4. campion
  1. wood sorrel
  2. hellebore
  3. benzoin
  4. Colchicum
  1. hartshorn
  2. wolfsbane
  3. mugwort
  4. logwood
  1. Begonia
  2. hemlock
  3. flexile
  4. origanum
  1. assafoetida
  2. digitalis
  3. where'er
  4. arborvitae
  1. hysop
  2. fennel
  3. hasheesh
  4. exhilarant

reverse dictionary (12)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. hebenon
  2. hyoscine
  1. hyoscyamine
  2. hyoscyamus
  1. insane-root
  2. hog's bean
  1. henbelle
  2. hog-bean
  1. scopolamine
  2. genus hyoscyamus
  1. stinking nightshade
  2. circumscissile

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Lists

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Comments

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  • chained_bear "At Bethlehem Hospital Crippen added a new drug to his basket, hydrobromide of hyoscine, derived from an herb of the nightshade family, Hyoscyamus niger, known more commonly as henbane."
    —Erik Larson, Thunderstruck (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006), 33

    More on mydriatic. Jul 6, 2009

  • slumry Hyoscyamus niger Aug 1, 2007

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‘henbane’ has been looked up 1538 times, loved by 1 person, added to 14 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 12.