nux vomica

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A tree (Strychnos nux-vomica) native to southeast Asia, having poisonous seeds that are the source of the medicinal alkaloids strychnine and brucine.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The seed of Strychnos Nux-vomica (which see, under Strychnos). These seeds are flat and circular, three fourths of an inch in diameter, and one sixteenth of an inch thick. They grow embedded in large numbers in the juicy pulp of a fruit resembling an orange, but with hard fragile rind. They are covered with fine silky hairs and composed mainly of a horny albumen, are acrid and bitter to the taste, and are highly poisonous. They yield principally the two alkaloids brucine and strychnine. The pharmacodynamic properties of nux vomica are those of strychnine. See quaker buttons, under button.
2. n. The tree producing the above fruit. It is widely dispersed in the East Indies, and attains a height of 40 feet. Its wood and root are very bitter, and form a native remedy for intermittent fevers, also for snake-bites. The timber is brownish-gray, hard and close-grained, and employed in Burma for carts, etc., as also for fine work. Also called snakewood.

Wiktionary

1. n. The strychnine tree, Strychnos nux-vomica, an evergreen tree found in southeastern Asia.
2. n. The fruit of Strychnos nux-vomica, which contains strychnine and brucine.
3. n. A preparation made from the fruit of Strychnos nux-vomica, traditionally used as a stimulant.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. The seed of Strychnos Nuxvomica, a tree which abounds on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of the East Indies. From this seed the deadly poisons known as strychnine and brucine are obtained. The seeds are sometimes called Quaker buttons.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a medicine made from the seeds of an Asiatic tree; contains strychnine and brucine; formerly used as a stimulant