squill

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several bulbous Eurasian and African plants of the genus Scilla, having narrow leaves and bell-shaped blue, white, or pink flowers.
2. n. See sea onion.
3. n. The dried inner scales of the bulbs of any of these plants, used as rat poison and formerly as a cardiac stimulant, expectorant, and diuretic.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The medicinal bulb of Urginea Scilla, or the plant itself; the officinal squill. See Urginea.
2. n. Any plant of the genus Scilla (which see). S. nutans is commonly called bluebell, or wild hyacinth. The spring squill, S. verna, and the autumn squill, S. autumnalis, are small European wild flowers of no great merit in cultivation. The starflowered squill, S. amœna, is a distinct early species, the flowers indigo-blue with large yellowish-green ovary, less attractive than the species following. The early squill, S. bifolia, produces rich masses of dark-blue flowers very early in the spring. The Spanish squill, S. Hispanica (S. campanulata), is a fine species of early summer, with a strong pyramidal raceme of large pendent usually light-blue flowers: also called Spanish bluebell. The Italian squill, S. Italica, has pale-blue flowers with intensely blue stamens. The pyramidal or Peruvian squill, S. Peruviana, not from Peru, but from the Mediterranean region, has pale-blue flowers with white stamens, the flowers very numerous in a regular pyramid. The Siberian squill, S. Sibirica (S. amœnula), not from Siberia, but from southern Russia, is a very choice small early-flowering species, the blossom of a peculiar porcelain-blue. These are all hardy except the pyramidal squill.
3. n. A stomatopodous crustacean of the genus Squilla or family Squillidæ; a mantis-shrimp or squill-fish. See cuts under mantis-shrimp and Squillidæ.
4. n. An insect so called from its resemblance to the preceding; a mantis. Also called squill-insect.

Wiktionary

1. n. A European bulbous liliaceous plant, of the genus Scilla, used in medicine for its acrid, expectorant, diuretic, and emetic properties
2. n. A mantis shrimp, Squilla mantis, from the Mediterranean

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A European bulbous liliaceous plant (Urginea maritima, formerly Scilla maritima), of acrid, expectorant, diuretic, and emetic properties, used in medicine. Called also sea onion.
2. n. Any bulbous plant of the genus Scilla.
3. n. A squilla.
4. n. A mantis.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an Old World plant of the genus Scilla having narrow basal leaves and pink or blue or white racemose flowers
2. n. bulb of the sea squill, which is sliced, dried, and used as an expectorant
3. n. having dense spikes of small white flowers and yielding a bulb with medicinal properties