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Mandrake   Listen
noun
mandrake  n.  
1.
(Bot.) A low plant (Mandragora officinarum) of the Nightshade family, having a fleshy root, often forked, and supposed to resemble a man. It was therefore supposed to have animal life, and to cry out when pulled up. All parts of the plant are strongly narcotic. It is found in the Mediterranean region. "And shrieks like mandrakes, torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad." Note: The mandrake of Scripture was perhaps the same plant, but proof is wanting.
2.
(Bot.) The May apple (Podophyllum peltatum). See May apple under May, and Podophyllum. (U.S.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mandrake" Quotes from Famous Books



... slight difference, so that it may barely be distinguished as another : species. Another relative is our twin-leaf (Jeffersonia) of the Alleghany region alone: a second species has lately turned up in Mantchooria. A relative of this is Podophyllum, our mandrake, a common inhabitant of the Atlantic United States, but found nowhere else. There is one other species of it, and that is in the Himalayas. Here are four most peculiar genera of one family, each of a single species in the Atlantic ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... produces fruitfulness in women; but the commentators are by no means agreed as to its nature and its properties. The LXX. render it by Mandragoras, which has been understood by the most eminent ancient and modern theologians to mean the mandrake (Alraunwurzel) so famous in the history of witchcraft. In many instances the devils, strangely enough, receive Christian names; thus the familiar spirit of old Lizzie is afterwards called Kit, i.e., Christopher.] which spirit had given her such a blow on the head in the night ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... is the tree and the fruit good, Very old and thick the wood. Woodman, is your courage stout? Beware! the root is wrapped about Your mother's heart, your father's bones; And like the mandrake comes with groans. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... intoned hollowly. It was a cultured voice, and there was a refinement to his face that registered on Dave's mind even over the horror of the weapon. "The fools cannot hold the shell. But neither shall they delay its breaking. Dead you were, mandrake son, and dead you shall be again. But since the fault is only theirs, may no ill dreams ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... like botanizing, and one soon learns to recognize the prevailing species, and to look with pleased eagerness for new. It is a tragic botany indeed, where, as in enchanted gardens, every specimen has a voice, and, as you take each from the ground, you expect from it a cry like the mandrake's. And from what a garden it comes! As one walks round Brenton's Point after an autumnal storm, it seems as if the passionate heaving of the waves had brought wholly new tints to the surface, hues unseen even in dreams before, ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... we have the scarcely innocent underground stem of one of a tribe set aside for evil; having the deadly nightshade for its queen, and including the henbane, the witch's mandrake, and the worst natural curse of modern civilization—tobacco.* And the strange thing about this tribe is, that though thus set aside for evil, they are not a group distinctly separate from those that are happier ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... she was one of the most interesting women he ever talked to," Jim continued inexorably, "and John Mandrake wanted to paint her!" ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... mandrake (may-apple) Southern European plant (Mandragora officinarum) having greenish-yellow flowers and a branched root. This plant was once believed to have magical powers because its root resembles the human body. The root contains the poisonous alkaloid hyoscyamine. Also called ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... had been left there by a young man calling himself Brackett, who had gone on down the river, but was expected back in a day or two. Cap'n Cod would have telegraphed to Sheriff Riley but for the fact that the wires had not yet been extended to Mandrake. So he wrote and begged the Sheriff to hasten down the ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe

... Paul at him, and "You damnable mandrake!" retorted Master Peter. The pair would have flown at each other if they could have wriggled free. But as they could not they perforce resigned themselves to hear what Brilliana would ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... those thirty-three minutes, plus fifteen seconds for you know what, we find ourself in the barber's chair. Despairingly we gaze about at the little blue flasks with flowers enameled on them; at the piles of clean towels; at the bottles of mandrake essence which we shall presently have to affirm or deny. Under any other circumstances we should deeply enjoy a half hour spent in a comfortable chair, with nothing to do but do nothing. Our barber is a delightful fellow; he looks ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... successively as a mandrake, a cock, a herring, a whale, "Who spouted rivers up as if he meant o join our seas with seas above the firmament." Next, as a mouse, it crept up an elephant's sinewy proboscis to the soul's bedchamber, the brain, and, gnawing the life cords there, died, crushed ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... assistance I have received from so many scholars in all parts of the world. The mere list of names would be like Southey's "Cataract of Lodore," and would be but an ungracious mode of returning thanks. I cannot, however, forbear to mention Professor Mandrake, of the Oxford Chair, optimus maximus among modern historians. Of him I may say, in the fine words of ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... possible that Shakespeare had no particular plant in view, but simply referred to any of the many narcotic plants which, when given in excess, would "take the reason prisoner." The critics have suggested many plants—the Hemlock, the Henbane, the Belladonna, the Mandrake, &c., each one strengthening his opinion from coeval writers. In this uncertainty I should incline to the Henbane from the following description by Gerard and Lyte. "This herbe is called . . . of Apuleia-Mania" (Lyte). "Henbane ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe



Words linked to "Mandrake" :   herb, herbaceous plant, mandrake root, root, genus Mandragora, Mandragora, Mandragora officinarum, wild mandrake, devil's apples



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