Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An aromatic Eurasian plant (Marrubium vulgare) in the mint family, having square stems, opposite leaves with white pubescence, and numerous white flowers in axillary cymes. The leaves yield a bitter extract used in flavoring and as a cough remedy.
- n. A candy or preparation flavored with this extract.
- n. Any of similar or related plants, such as the black horehound.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. See hoarhound.
Wiktionary
- n. A herb, Marrubium vulgare, of the mint family. Traditionally used to make a powerful cough remedy.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A plant of the genus Marrubium (Marrubium vulgare), which has a bitter taste, and is a weak tonic, used as a household remedy for colds, coughing, etc.
- n. A lozenge or tablet, usually sweetened, containing extract of horehound, used as a remedy for a cough or a sore throat.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of various aromatic herbs of the genus Marrubium
- n. a candy that is flavored with an extract of the horehound plant
Etymologies
- Middle English, alteration (influenced by hound, hound) of horhune, from Old English hārehūne : hār, hoary + hūne, a kind of plant.
Examples
“The children have learned to identify wild edible and medicinal plants in our bioregion, helping to harvest prickly pear and banana yucca fruit each season, as well as to appreciate the healing benefits of juniper berries, snakeweed, mallow, horehound, and more.”
“White horehound flowers end up garnishing a dish of razor clams.”
“Each morning, Mr. Willetts cycles from his home nearby, stopping off along the way to pick vegetation such as honeysuckle, borage, sweet violets, horehound and meadowsweet, which will end up on one of the dishes at the restaurant later that day.”
“In his mouth there was the sweet burn of horehound candy, the exact savor of his long-ago childhood.”
“Cadfael went back to his workshop in the herbarium, and blew up his brazier to boil a fresh elixir of horehound for the winter coughs and colds.”
“Remember in the Little House books how excited Laura and Mary would get over an orange and a piece of horehound candy?”
“Maybe I smelled the musk of horehound and the bracing scent of mint in my sleep, for in the morning I awoke to find those herbs in the straw around our blankets, mixed with poppies and cornflower and other weeds that had grown unwelcomed amidst wheat and barley.”
“I made a tisane of horehound and hyssop the next night, when I heard the woman coughing, and in this way I took up my duties as a greenwoman again.”
“I gathered mint and mustard and nettles, and went down to my herb garden on the terrace below the house to pick horehound and hyssop.”
“Instead of using rock candy and dried horehound, he puts horehound candy drops (an old-fashioned cough lozenge) in the whiskey.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘horehound’.
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Herbs: How Fragrant, How Delicious
Delicious scents in an edible nibble.
zedoary, zahtar, yarrow, wormwood, wasabi, verbena, valerian, thyme, Thai basil, tarragon, sweet basil, sorrel and 59 more...
chained_bear Here's a bit more, from OED (which I think not everyone has access to, no?):
1. A labiate herb, Marrubium vulgare, having stem and leaves covered with white cottony pubescence (!!); its aromatic bitter juice is much used as a remedy for coughs, etc. Hence extended to several allied herbs (see b), horehound proper being then distinguished as common or white horehound.
b. With qualifying words: base horehound, White Dead-nettle, Lamium album; black, fetid, or stinking h., Ballota nigra, a common weed with dull purple flowers; water h., species of Lycopus, particularly L. Europæus.
2. An extract or confection of the plant Marrubium vulgare, used as a remedy for coughs.
3. attrib. and Comb., as horehound candy, drop, lozenge, etc.; horehound beer, a fermented beverage containing horehound juice.
Jan 28, 2009
rolig The horehound drops (which were not drops, but lozenges) my grandmother gave me were delicious! Jan 27, 2009
jennarenn Also delicious. Jun 27, 2007
slumry horehound drops, an old fashioned remedy/candy. Jun 27, 2007
seanahan Not to be confused with whorehound, which I'm sure doesn't many anything. Feb 6, 2007
chained_bear A perennial plant in the mint family, which contains a bitter medicinal juice. Feb 6, 2007