MANDRAKE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Mandrake

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noun

mandrake n.

(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.

(Bot.) The May apple (Podophyllum peltatum). See May apple under May, and Podophyllum. (U.S.)

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Etymology of 'Mandrake'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mandrake" Quotes from Famous Books

... above enquiry, their helpmates were equally desirous of finding a means whereby they might escape the reproach of barrenness,—a reproach than which none was more dreaded by eastern women. Such means was at last discovered, or supposed to be so, in the mandrake,[73] a plant which thenceforth became, as the following quotation proves, of inestimable value ...

— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... which from time to time have been regarded as divine emblems, the principal are perhaps the fig, the pomegranate, the mandrake, the almond, and the olive. The peculiarly sacred character which we find attached to the fig ceases to be a mystery so soon as we remember that the organs of generation, male and female, had, in process of time, come to be objects of worship and that ...

— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... upon them! wherefore should I curse them? Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan, I would invent as bitter-searching terms, As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear, Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth, With full as many signs of deadly hate, As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave. My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words; Mine ...

— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

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