cantharides
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Late Middle English, from Latin cantharides, plural of cantharis.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
cantharides (uncountable)
- Spanish fly, Lytta vesicatoria (syn. Cantharis vesicatoria).
- Spanish fly; a vesicant extracted from the beetle, popularly held to have aphrodisiac properties.
- 1926, Hope Mirrlees, chapter 26, in Lud-in-the-Mist:
- I can make the most subtle sauces yield up their secret—whether it be white arsenic, rosalgar, mercury sublimate, or cantharides.
- 1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like The Sun:
- Speaking her name, it was as if he spake pure cantharides. ‘Quick,’ she panted. ‘There is time before they are all about. Again.’
- 1992, Will Self, Cock and Bull:
- It’s lucky that Carol had taken the precaution of obtaining some cantharides; without them the evening might have been a dead loss.
- 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 612:
- Basically Louis's drug dealer and pimp, Richelieu, known for opium recipes to fit all occasions, is also credited with the introduction into France of the cantharides, or Spanish fly.
Latin[edit]
Noun[edit]
cantharidēs