Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The hairs of the pods of a leguminous plant, Mucuna pruriens. The pod is covered with a thick coating of short, stiff, brittle brown hairs, which are retrorsely serrate toward the top. They easily penetrate the skin, and produce an intolerable itching. They are employed medicinally as a mechanical vermifuge.
- noun The entire pods of M. pruriens.
- noun The plant itself.
- noun In the West Indies, a euphorbiaceous shrub, Acidoton urens, bearing capsules covered with stinging hairs. The twining cowhage of the same region is a woody climber of the same order, Tragia volubilis, with hispid capsules.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A leguminous climbing plant of the genus Mucuna, having crooked pods covered with sharp hairs, which stick to the fingers, causing intolerable itching. The spiculæ are sometimes used in medicine as a mechanical vermifuge.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Alternative form of
cowage .
Etymologies
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Examples
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The researchers rubbed roughly the same number of cowhage spicules the itch-inducing spiky bits of that plant, also known as velvet bean on three locations: the front of the ankle; on the underside of the forearm; and under the shoulder blade on the back.
A Dip in the Pool Does an Aging Body Good Jeremy Singer-Vine 2012
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Many other plants are also known to produce cutaneous irritation in certain subjects; among these may be mentioned the nettle, primrose, cowhage, smartweed, balm of Gilead, oleander, and rue.
Essentials of Diseases of the Skin Including the Syphilodermata Arranged in the Form of Questions and Answers Prepared Especially for Students of Medicine Henry Weightman Stelwagon 1886
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Page 132 or unburnt bricks, paving and roofing tiles, gas retorts, and roofing slates; coal, coke, and culm of coal; cochineal; cocoa nuts, cocoa and cocoa shells; coculus indicus; coir yarn; codilla, or tow of hemp or flax; cowhage down; cream of tartar; cudbear.
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British Journal of Dermatology, healthy male and female volunteers aged 22 to 59 were made to itch by rubbing them with cowhage, a plant with tiny hairs that irritate the skin.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Roger Dobson 2012
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Just in case you're not familiar with cowhage spicules, they are tiny threads taken from a tropical legume.
News 2012
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Just take it on faith that when applied to a human's skin, cowhage spicules reliably induce intense itching.
News 2012
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The quantity of saliva may also be increased beyond what is natural, by the catenation of the motions of these glands with other motions, or sensations, as by an extraneous body in the ear; of which I have known an instance; or by the application of stizolobium, siliqua hirsuta, cowhage, to the seat of the parotis, as some writers have affirmed.
Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766
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