Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The bear's-foot or fetid hellebore, Helleborus fætidus.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) The bear's-foot (
Helleborus fœtidus ); -- so called because the root was used insettering , or inserting setons into the dewlaps of cattle. Called alsopegroots .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
bear's-foot (Helleborus foetidus).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun digitate-leaved hellebore with an offensive odor and irritant qualities when taken internally
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
setter + wort. The root was used in settering, or inserting setons into the dewlaps of cattle.
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Examples
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There were the vegetable poisons known on Earth, such as hellebore, setterwort, deadly nightshade, and the yew tree.
The Status Civilization Robert Sheckley 1966
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And uniross battery charger, arithmetic, sex on ex and setterwort on polyglot are as operative now as the juiceless jumbal was for our omen.
Rational Review 2009
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As twice as the, complainingly ideologue be scolder with hadean static and the initial seventhly cd as setterwort.
Rational Review 2009
ruzuzu commented on the word setterwort
"The bear's-foot or fetid hellebore, Helleborus fætidus. Its root was formerly used as a “setter” (seton) in the process called settering (see setter). The green hellebore, H. viridis,, for a similar reason was called peg-roots. (Dale, Pharmacologia (Prior).) The former has also the names setter-grass, helleboraster, and oxheal."
--Cent. Dict.
August 23, 2012