absinthium

See also: Absinthium

English

absinthium (uncountable)

(now rare) The common wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), an intensely bitter herb used in the production of absinthe and vermouth, and as a tonic. [First attested around 1150 to 1350.][1]
The dried leaves and flowering tops of the wormwood plant.[2]
absinthe oil

Artemisia absinthium — see wormwood

dried wormwood

absinthe oil — see absinthe oil

“absinthium” in Lesley Brown, editor, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 5th edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-860457-0, page 9.
Philip Babcock Gove (editor), Webster's Third International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (G. & C. Merriam Co., 1976 [1909], ISBN 0-87779-101-5), page 5

From Ancient Greek ἀψίνθιον (apsínthion, “wormwood”).

absinthium n (genitive absinthiī or absinthī); second declension

wormwood
an infusion of wormwood sometimes masked with honey due to its bitter taste
(figuratively) something which is bitter but wholesome
- c. 95 CE, Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 3.1.5:
  Sed nos veremur ne parum hic liber mellis et absinthii multum habere videatur
  But I fear that this book will have too little sweetness and too much wormwood.
accusative singular of absinthium
vocative singular of absinthium

Second declension.

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

absinthium in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
absinthium in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
absinthium in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.