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Cochineal   Listen
noun
Cochineal  n.  A dyestuff consisting of the dried bodies of females of the Coccus cacti, an insect native in Mexico, Central America, etc., and found on several species of cactus, esp. Opuntia cochinellifera. Note: These insects are gathered from the plant, killed by the application of heat, and exposed to the sun to dry. When dried they resemble small, rough berries or seeds, of a brown or purple color, and form the cochineal of the shops, which is used for making carmine, and also as a red dye. Note: Cochineal contains as its essential coloring matter carminic acid, a purple red amorphous substance which yields carmine red.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cochineal" Quotes from Famous Books



... half full, the cargo, consisting chiefly of cochineal and copper, which is stowed in small space, the captain offered to take as many of my goods as he could stow, provided I would allow him the freight. This I willingly consented to, and examining ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... and, some of the plants she had helped Ernest to dry having left their colour on the papers, she made some experiments, and succeeded in obtaining a very pretty blue to dye our clothes with; and, with the cochineal from our fig-tree, a beautiful red brown, with which she had dyed for herself ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... of scope in vegetarian cooking not merely for refinement, but even elegance. Do not despise the sprinkle of chopped parsley and red specks of bread-crumbs coloured with cochineal, so often referred to throughout the following pages. Remember that the cost of these little accessories to comfort is virtually nil. We must remember also that one sense works upon another. We can ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne

... the soles of her feet. It was customary for Hindu ladies to stain the soles of their feet of a red colour with the dye made from lac—a minute insect bearing some resemblance to the cochineal—which punctures the bark of the Indian fig-tree, and surrounds itself with the milky resinous juice of that tree. This custom is a alluded to in one of Paterson's ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... reason for its not thriving, many religious rites being performed at its planting by the Spaniards, which their slaves were not permitted to see. But it is probable that, where a nation as they removed the art of making cochineal and curing vanilloes into their inland provinces, which were the commodities of those islands in the Indians' time, and forbade the opening of any mines in them for fear some maritime nation might be invited to the conquering ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head

... imported dyestuffs of other lands, which possessed some advantage, being either richer in coloring matter, yielding brighter or faster colors, or being capable of more easy application. Thus kermes gave way to cochineal, woad to indigo, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... Madrid colored their cheeks, and the rouge of the ladies of Paris. She learned that the Greek and Roman ladies were painted with the purple that came from the murex, and consequently that our scarlet was the purple of the ancients; that there was more saffron in the Spanish rouge and more cochineal in the French. ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... is there to deceive you, and you are there to find him out. But what are you to do with the friend of your host's wife? Are you to turn on a light suddenly and expose her slapping a surreptitious banjo? Or are you to hurl cochineal over her evening frock when she steals round with her phosphorus bottle and her supernatural platitude? There would be a scene, and you would be looked upon as a brute. So you have your choice of being that or a dupe. I was in no very ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sauces, while in the interior the finest steel—corresponding to the Bilbao blades of more modern history—was tempered in the cold streams of the hills above the sources of the Tagus. From Portugal came cochineal and olives. In several parts of the peninsula—in Portugal, in the Asturias, and near Cartagena—were mines of gold and silver, which had been worked by the old Phoenicians and which the Romans had reopened. The chief trouble of Spain, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... $8,000,000 annually. The madder fields of France were put to other uses and even the French soldiers became dependent on made-in-Germany dyes for their red trousers. The British soldiers were placed in a similar situation as regards their red coats when after 1878 the azo scarlets put the cochineal bug out of business. ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... wager, Blitum capitatum, and a fine thing it is. Mrs. Marsh, that keeps our boarding house, has a garden where it grows wild in among the peas. She wanted some colouring for the icing of a cake, and hadn't a bit of cochineal or anything of the kind in the house. She was telling me her trouble, for it was a holiday and the shops were shut, and she's always that friendly with me; when, says I, 'There is no trouble about that.' So I went to the garden and got two lovely stalks of Blitum capitatum. 'Is ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... cultivation of the nopal and the breeding of the insect which produces cochineal has been practised at Cadiz, and thence at Malta, is well known. A French apothecary is said to have made the experiment in Corsica, but on a very confined scale; and the King of the Netherlands, on information that the Isle of Java was well adapted for the cultivation of this important ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various

... in the Spanish trade, and had been captured by Captain Levee, who had taken her out from under a battery as she lay at anchor, having just made her port from a voyage from South America, being at that time laden with copper and cochineal—a most valuable prize she had proved—and as she was found to be a surprising fast sailer, the owner had resolved to fit her out as ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... and so on. These rouges are sold in powder, and also in cake or china pots; for the latter the rouge is mixed with a minute portion of solution of gum tragacanth. M. Titard prepares a great variety of rouges. In some instances the coloring-matter of the cochineal is spread upon thick paper and dried very gradually; it then assumes a beautiful green tint. This curious optical effect is also observed in "pink saucers." What is known as Chinese book rouge is evidently made in the same way, and has been imported into ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... shall certainly find it proper to do, we must do it by circuitous voyages in a great measure? For this purpose the productions of the West Indies and of the continent of America south of us, such as sugar, coffee, (rum would not answer,) all sorts of dyeing woods, cochineal, &c. are proper. This may point out the importance of obtaining a right to cut those woods on the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... hard-working Canarienses have built tanks to save the rain, and they bring streams in flumes from the inner hills that rise six thousand feet above the sea. They grow vines and sugar and cultivate the cochineal insect, which looks like a loathsome disease (as indeed it is) upon the swarth cactus or tunera which it feeds on. And the islands grow tobacco. Las Palmas is after all only the emporium of Grand Canary and a coaling station for steamers to South Africa and the West Coast and South America. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... salt of tartar in a gill of water; add to it ten grains of cochineal; sweeten it with sugar. Give to an infant a quarter teaspoonful four times a day; two years old, one-half teaspoonful; from four years, a tablespoonful. Great care is required in the administration of medicines to infants. We ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... in which it was said there were two millions of uncoined gold and silver in ingots, fifty thousand crowns in coined reals, seven thousand hides, four chests of pearls, each containing two bushels, and some sacks of cochineal—the whole valued at twenty-five barrels of gold; it was said to be one year and a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... boiled, adding a teaspoonful each of anchovy essence and mushroom catsup. Remove from the fire and beat in the yolks of two eggs and the juice of one lemon. Color with liquid carmine or a few drops of cochineal and pour over ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore

... hollow reconciliation, Villa Dorta was burnt, after the kindly usage, and the fleet went prize hunting. Three Spanish ships from the Havannah were captured. The largest, of 400 tons, was laden with gold, cochineal, indigo, civet, musk, and ambergris, beside many valuable passengers. Enough of cochineal and indigo was taken 'to be used in this realm for many years,' according to an official report. Ralegh was its captor. He expressed his pleasure either magnanimously or contemptuously: ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... to our surprise that this vessel, with the three others, one of which was taken by another of our boats, were from Lima. They were single-masted, about thirty tons burthen, twelve men each, and were laden with copper, hides, wax, and cochineal, and had been out five months. They were bound to Valentia, from which they were only one day's sail when we intercepted them. Such is the fortune of war! This gallant man, after a voyage of incredible labour and difficulty, would in a few hours have embraced his family, and ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... confectionery," said he. "It's terra alba and cochineal. And when it comes to the sensation, it will be benzine for whiskey. Real things are bad enough, for the most part, in this world; but when it comes to sham fictions and adulterated poisons, Dorris, I'd rather help bake bread, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... fondant to a thin, grayish, paste-like consistency. Dip the flowers in this one at a time, dust with powdered crystallized sugar, and lay on oiled paper to harden. Rose leaves may he candied in the same way, substituting essence of rose for the violet and a drop or two of cochineal to make the required color. A candy dipper or fine wire can be used for dipping ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes

... be made in this way: take of powdered cochineal, cream of tartar and powdered alum, each two drachms; of salts of tartar, ten grains; pour upon the powders half a pint of boiling water; let it stand for two hours to settle, or filter through paper. Use ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... room than Sanda's or even Lella Mabrouka's; and as, during the two days that followed, Zakia was almost constantly occupied in blanching the bride's ivory skin with almond paste, staining her fingers red as coral with a decoction of henna and cochineal, and saturating her hair and body with a famous permanent perfume, sometimes Lella Mabrouka and Taous ventured to leave the two girls chaperoned only by la hennena. That was because neither had seen the sudden light in Ourieda's eyes after the face ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... flavoured by the juice of various fruits, and spices, &c. and coloured with saffron, cochineal, red beet juice, spinage juice, claret, &c.; and it is sometimes made with cherry brandy, or noyeau rouge, or Curacoa (No. 474), or essence of punch ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... commander set her on fire, and when the Englishmen came close to her she was one dangerous splendour of flaming perfumes and roaring cannon. Raleigh was more fortunate in securing another carrack laden with cochineal from Cuba. The rest of the Islands Voyage was uneventful and ill-managed. For some time nothing was heard of the fleet in England, and Lady Raleigh 'skrebbled,' as she spelt it, hasty notes to Cecil begging for news of her husband. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... stockings, hats, fustians, haberdashery wares, tin, and hardware; as also herrings, pilchards, salted flesh, and grain; linens, pipe- staves, hoops, &c. Importing in return Canary wines, logwood, hides, indigo, cochineal, and other commodities, the produce of America and the ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... eggs are made by painting pictures or messages on eggs that have been hard-boiled, or by merely boiling them in water containing cochineal or some other coloring material. In Germany it is the custom for Easter eggs to be hidden about in the house and garden, and for the family to hunt for them before breakfast—a plan that might very well be taken ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... used in the work of the best period were pear, walnut, and maple, though pine and cypress also appear. Ebony was imitated with a tincture of gall apples, green was obtained with verdigris, and red with cochineal. Sublimate of mercury, arsenical acid, and sulphuric acid were also used to affect the colour of the wood. This treatment lessened its lasting power, and often caused its decay through the attacks of worms. The scorching was done with molten lead, or in very dark ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... mental powers of the highest animals and those of man. That this is only quantitative, not qualitative, he has already shown. Very instructive in this connection is the reference to the enormous difference in mental powers in another class. No one would draw from the fact that the cochineal insect (Coccus) and the ant exhibit enormous differences in their mental powers, the conclusion that the ant should therefore be regarded as something quite distinct, and withdrawn from the ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... become full-grown, secures herself to a leaf, where she remains immovable. She now grows to such a size, that she more resembles a seed belonging to a plant than an insect, all her limbs being completely concealed by her wide-expanded body. In process of time, before the young insects are born, the cochineal-gatherers detach the insect by means of a knife dipped in boiling water, which kills them. They are then dried in the sun, and appear like small dry berries of a ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... the sound Of bees or a sphere. No Hand is seen, but still you may feel A pulse in the thread, And thought in every lever and wheel Where the shuttle sped, Dripping the colors, as crushed and urged— Is it cochineal?— Shot from the shuttle, woven and merged A tale to reveal. Woven and wound in a bolt and dried As it were a plan. Closer I looked at the thread and cried ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... Alonzo de Ochares Galindo and General Ganevaye. They had on board, according to the registers, 1,914,176 dollars worth of bullion for the king, and 6,086,617 dollars for merchants, or 8,000,000 dollars in all, besides rich cargoes of silk, cochineal, sarsaparilla, indigo, Brazil wood, and hides; the result of two years of pressure upon Peruvians, Mexicans, and Brazilians. Never had Spanish finances been at so low an ebb. Never was so splendid an income more desirable. The king's share of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... solicitous about Bob, the oldest man on the place. Over and over again he enumerated the comforts he thought he might need and made provision to supply them. He sent him enough cochineal flannel for his rheumatism to wrap him four-ply deep. For Rhinah, his wife, he ordered enough ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... Toussenel and Michelet have framed in behalf of the bird. The silkworm, the lac insect, and the bee need no apologist; a gallnut produced by the puncture of a cynips on a Syrian oak is a necessary ingredient in the ink I am writing with, and from my windows I recognize the grain of the kermes and the cochineal in the gay habiliments of the holiday ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... preparations were produced in an instant, from the cheapest and coarsest drugs of the materia medica: and when any common thing was ordered for a patient, he always took care to disguise it in colour or taste, or both, in such a manner that it could not possibly be known; for which purpose cochineal and oil of cloves were of great service. Mr. Lavement had attempted more than once to introduce a vegetable diet into his family, by launching out into the praise of roots and greens, and decrying the use of flesh, both as a physician ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... rise before the Black Eagle arrives," the merchant rejoined confidently. "Then he has palm nuts in bulk, gum, ebony, skins, cochineal, and ivory." ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... with Sharp and others, was fitting out an expedition in Jamaica to make a raid in the Gulf of Honduras, which proved very successful, as they brought back 500 chests of indigo, besides cocoa, cochineal, tortoiseshell, money, and plate. ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse



Words linked to "Cochineal" :   cochineal insect, dyestuff, Dactylopius, scale insect, genus Dactylopius, Dactylopius coccus, dye



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