pone: (n) 1. Originally: a North American Indian bread made of maize flour in thin loaves and cooked in hot ashes. Now: any unleavened bread or dough-like cake made usually with maize.
2. A cake or loaf, usually of cornmeal, typically shaped in the hands and baked, fried, or griddled.
3. Caribbean. A baked pudding made from sweet potato, cassava, or cornmeal, with sugar, milk, eggs, butter, and flavoured with spices and a variety of other ingredients.
cordovan: (adj) Of or pertaining to Cordova; made of the leather there manufactured.
cabochon: (n) A precious stone when merely polished, without being cut into facets or receiving any regular figure but that which belongs to the stone itself, the rough parts only being removed. This fashion is chiefly applied to the garnet (carbuncle), ruby, sapphire and amethyst.
aludel: (n) A pear-shaped pot of earthenware or glass, open at both ends, so that a series could be fitted one above another; used by the alchemists in sublimation.
phlogiston: (n) 1. In Chemistry: A hypothetical substance formerly supposed to exist in combination in all combustible bodies, and to be released in the process of combustion (by some identified with the element fire, conceived as being fixed in flammable substances).
2. Fiery or combustible quality.
vesicant: (n) An application employed to raise blisters; a vesicatory. Also in mod. use, a vesicant substance for use in warfare.
(adj) Causing, efficacious in producing, blisters; vesicatory.
odalisque: (n) A female slave or concubine in a harem, esp. in the seraglio of the Sultan of Turkey (now hist.). In extended use: an exotic, sexually attractive woman; a representation of a sexually attractive figure in art.
numismatics: (n) The study of coins, medals, and (occasionally) banknotes, esp. from an archaeological or historical perspective. Also: the collection of these as artefacts.
rhinitis: (n) Inflammation of the nose.
mastic: (n) 1. An aromatic gum or resin which exudes from the bark of the lentisk or mastic tree, Pistacia lentiscus (sense 2), used chiefly in making varnishes and, formerly, in medicine (also mastic gum). Also with distinguishing word: any of various similar resins derived from other trees.
Mastic is generally sold in the form of roundish, pea-sized tears, transparent with a pale yellow or faint greenish tinge. It is produced almost exclusively on the Greek island of Chios in the Aegean Sea.
2. A shade of pale yellow, resembling the colour of mastic.
3. An evergreen shrub of the Mediterranean coastal region, Pistacia lentiscus (family Anacardiaceae), closely related to the pistachio, the bark of which yields mastic; Also (usually with distinguishing word): any of several trees of related genera which yield a similar gum; esp. the pepper tree, Schinus molle, of tropical South America (more fully Peruvian mastic), and the gumbo-limbo, Bursera simaruba, of the Caribbean region (more fully West Indian mastic).
lentisk: (n) The mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus).
arbutus: (n) 1. A genus of evergreen shrubs and trees (family Ericaceæ). The name belonged originally, and is still usually applied, to the species Arbutus Unedo, or Strawberry Tree, a native of the south of Europe, long established in the south-west of Ireland, and commonly cultivated for ornamental purposes.
2. Applied to a North American ericaceous plant, Epigæa repens, called also trailing arbutus, ground laurel, and mayflower, and prized as a harbinger of spring.
ericaceous: (adj) Belonging to the family Ericaceæ, of which the Erica or heath is the typical genus.
privet: (n) 1. Originally: the deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub Ligustrum vulgare (family Oleaceae), native to Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia, having glossy dark green leaves and clusters of small white flowers succeeded by shiny black berries, and formerly cultivated for garden hedges; (in early use also) a thicket of this shrub. Later also (frequently with distinguishing word): any of various other shrubs of the genus Ligustrum; especially the semi-evergreen Japanese species L. ovalifolium, now the kind which is usually used for hedges.
2. Usually with distinguishing word: any of various shrubs of other genera (especially Phillyrea) and families, usually having foliage or flowers which resemble those of privet in some way.
3. In full swamp privet. A small evergreen tree of the southern United States, Forestiera acuminata (family Oleaceae), with glossy leaves resembling those of privet.
(And now the mystery of Privet Drive in Harry Potter is solved)
savin: (n) 1. A small bushy evergreen shrub, Juniperus sabina, a native of Europe and Western Asia, with spreading branches completely covered with short imbricating leaves, and bearing a small, round, bluish-purple berry.
The name is also applied to certain trees or shrubs resembling Juniperus sabina, as the Sea Wormwood, Artemisia maritima; the dwarf Juniper, Juniperus nana; Cæsalpinia pulcherrima (Indian savin); in the U.S. to the Red Cedar, Juniperus virginiana, and to Torreya taxifolia, one of the stinking cedars; and in the W. Indies to Cæsalpinia bijuga, Fagara lentiscifolia and Xanthoxylum pterota.
2. The dried tops of this shrub, used as a drug.
Savin is strongly poisonous; it possesses emmenagogic properties, and hence was a common means of procuring abortion. It is also an anthelminthic, used chiefly in veterinary practice.
emmenagogic: (adj) Having power to excite the menstrual discharge.
anthelminthic: (adj) Of use against intestinal worms.
chervil: (n) A garden pot-herb (Anthriscus Cerefolium, formerly Chærophyllum sativum, family Umbelliferæ) the young leaves of which are used to impart an aromatic flavour to soups, stews, salads, etc.
gith: (n) 1. A name for plants of the genus Nigella, especially N. sativa; damask gith = N. damascena.
2. Applied to the Corn-cockle, Lychnis Githago.
idiosome: (n) 1 In Biology: A supposed ultimate unit of living matter.
2. A rounded structure present in the cytoplasm of developing germ cells in members of most animal groups, in certain of which it forms part of (or is associated with) the Golgi apparatus in spermatids and spermatocytes and develops into the acrosome of the spermatozoon.
acrosome: (n) A cap-like structure forming the anterior part of the head of a spermatozoon.
sardonyx: (n) A variety of onyx or stratified chalcedony having white layers alternating with one or more strata of sard.
sard: (n) A variety of cornelian/carnelian, varying in colour from pale golden yellow to reddish orange.
ajuga: (n) A genus of plants of the mint family which lack the floral upper lip characteristic of other labiates and include several species (especially bugle, A. reptans) cultivated as ornamental ground cover; a plant of this genus
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