Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A perennial North American herb (Oxypolis rigidior) in the parsley family, having pinnately compound leaves and umbels of small white flowers.
- noun Any of several related plants, such as the water hemlock.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A popular name of the Cicuta virosa, or water-hemlock: so named from its supposed injurious effect upon cows. See
Cicuta . - noun An American umbelliferous swamp-plant, Oxypolis rigidior, ranging from New York to Florida and westward to Minnesota and Louisiana, supposed to be poisonous to cattle. Also called
hemlock-dropwort : and water-dropwort. See cut in middle column.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A poisonous umbelliferous plant; in England, the
Cicuta virosa ; in the United States, theCicuta maculata and theArchemora rigida . Seewater hemlock .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of several related
poisonous plants of the genusCicuta ; especially the water hemlock
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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They employ the dried roots of the cowbane (_Cicuta virosa_), the bruised buds of the Dutch myrtle, and have discovered methods of dyeing with various lichens.
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Twice or thrice pinnate leaves, toothed like a tenon saw, with conspicuous veins ending in the notches, brand it as the beaver poison, otherwise known as the musquash root and spotted cowbane.
Some Summer Days in Iowa Frederick John Lazell 1905
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The poisonous hemlocks are two, one of which, the common hemlock, is said to have been the plant from which the Athenians prepared their poison for executing citizens condemned to death; and the other, the water-hemlock, or cowbane, is particularly deadly when eaten by cattle, to which it is fatal in a very few hours.
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The deepest colour is obtained from the dried root of a plant which from their description appears to be cowbane (Cicuta virosa).
The Journey to the Polar Sea John Franklin 1816
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'ache' refer not to the harmless water parsnip but to the poisonous water hemlock or cowbane.
The Witch-cult in Western Europe A Study in Anthropology Margaret Alice Murray 1913
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The common name for water hemlock is the cowbane.’
Spotted Hemlock Mitchell, Gladys, 1901-1983 1958
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