Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to Mithridates, specifically to Mithridates VI. of Pontus (died about 63 b. c.): as, the Mithridatic wars. Also Mithradatic.
  • [lowercase] Pertaining to or of the nature of mithridate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to King Mithridates, or to a mithridate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to Mithridates
  • adjective Of or pertaining to a mithridate
  • noun An antidotal or protective mixture.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Ancient Greek legend of King Mithridates VI of Pontus, who discovered an antidote for every known poison.

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Examples

  • There are people who have an appetite for grief, pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain, mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can soothe their ragged and dishevelled desolation.

    Uncollected Prose 2006

  • This is a far more efficacious method than the supposed mithridatic "habituation" or "toleration" of a poison, with small doses of which you have to be gradually prepared.

    More Science From an Easy Chair 1888

  • There are people who have an appetite for grief, pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain, mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can soothe their ragged and dishevelled desolation.

    Uncollected Prose 1832

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