Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A food or drug that stimulates evacuation of the bowels.
- adj. Stimulating evacuation of the bowels.
- adj. Causing looseness or relaxation, especially of the bowels.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Loose; soft; easy.
- In medicine, having the power or quality of relieving from constipation by relaxing or opening the intestines. Compare cathartic, 1.
- n. A medicine that relieves from costiveness by relaxing the intestines; a gentle purgative.
Wiktionary
- adj. Having the effect of moving the bowels, or aiding digestion and preventing constipation.
- n. Any substance, such as a food or in the form of medicine which has a laxative effect.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Having a tendency to loosen or relax.
- adj. (Med.) Having the effect of loosening or opening the intestines, and relieving from constipation; -- opposed to
astringent .
WordNet 3.0
- n. a mild cathartic
- adj. stimulating evacuation of feces
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French laxatif, from Medieval Latin laxātīvus, preventing constipation, from Late Latin, assuaging, from Latin laxātus, past participle of laxāre, to relax, from laxus, loose; see lax. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A sherbet of the pods, being slightly laxative, is much drunk during the great heats; and the dried fruit, made into small round cakes, is sold in the bazars.”
““The laxative was the lesser of the two evils, especially if your folks had found out.””
“The liberal use of these cooked vegetables has a tendency to prevent constipation, and some of them are called laxative foods, such as stewed onions and spinach.”
“DO NOT EAT OR DRINK any kind of laxative or purge highly seasoned food alcoholic drinks”
“Relax had gone from being about giving up control of things like rules and bowel muscles perhaps with some help from a laxative to being about striving to do something quite particular: nothing.”
“Most rhubarb available then was imported dried from China as a laxative, although some was also grown for medicinal purposes in England; fresh rhubarb was not used in British cooking until the late 18th century.”
The Guardian: Letters: Rosbifs, rhubarb and culinary history
“It was not cultivated as a plant until the 17th century long after Elizabeth I, and then only speculatively, and mainly as a possible home-grown substitute for the expensive rhubarb root imported from the east and used as a purgative and laxative.”
The Guardian: Letters: Rosbifs, rhubarb and culinary history
“Putting the word concern between quote marks is a poor laxative for understanding, ralph.”
Think Progress » Judge strikes down Arkansas law banning same-sex couples from adopting.
“My question is, why cant this lazy ass kid eat the laxative on his own?”
“On second though, he is a wuss for needing the laxative and for the inablility to lift it into his pie hole.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘laxative’.
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Reading Vocab
ulterior, warrant, syllogism, precious, impiety, maroon, aigrette, batiste, topsy-turvy ago, midnight crush, cantankerous, slovenly and 180 more...
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astrosfan's Words
pantaloons, schadenfreude, astonishing, eve, static, freeze, luscious, voluptuous, stagnant, mimic, speed, vespertillinoid and 302 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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My Necessary
condescend, approbation, precursor, vie, jostle, vegetation, exhaust, technocrat, preside, exacerbate, counterproductive, contrive and 22 more...
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nouns
tyke, twerp, scab, buoy, segue, quandary, vibe, frailty, apparition, malice, slumber, thespian and 44 more...
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Girl, Interrupted (1999)
Words from a 1999 'Girl, Interrupted' film.
top-notch, stunt, demise, bum, pecker, laxative, rotisserie, lifer, borderline, fatso, loon, dyke and 25 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for laxative.
sakhalinskii Toilet, in a pill. Aug 5, 2008