menstruum

From Latin mēnstruum (“menstrual discharge”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛn.stɹʊəm/

menstruum (plural menstruums or menstrua)

1. (chiefly in the plural, now historical) The menses; menstrual discharge. [from 14th c.]
2. (now historical) A solvent. [from 16th c.]
   • 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia:

     [T]hat combustible sulphureous Body is presently prey'd upon and devoured by the aereal incompassing Menstruum, whose office in this Particular I have shewn in the Explication of Charcole.

3. Any liquid medium.

Substantive of mēnstruus (“of or pertaining to a month, monthly”), from mēnsis (“month”).

mēnstruum n (genitive mēnstruī); second declension

1. a monthly payment
2. a monthly term of office or service
3. (in the plural) menstrual discharge

Second declension.

Inflected form of mēnstruus (“of or pertaining to a month, monthly”).

mēnstruum

1. nominative neuter singular of mēnstruus
2. accusative masculine singular of mēnstruus
3. accusative neuter singular of mēnstruus
4. vocative neuter singular of mēnstruus

• menstruum in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• menstruum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • monthly interest: usura menstrua
    
• menstruum in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• menstruum in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin