sternutatory, a. and n.
(stɜːˈnjuːtətərɪ)
[ad. med.L. sternūtātōrius (neut. -um as n.), f. L. sternūtāt, sternūtāre: see sternutation and -ory.]
A. adj.
1. Causing or tending to cause sneezing.
| 1616 T. Adams Dis. Soul 11 For the curing of this bodily infirmity, many remedies are prescribed..with scarification, gargarismes and sternutatory things. 1710 T. Fuller Pharm. Extemp. 394 Sternutatory Powder. 1829 Landor Imag. Conv., Chaucer, Boccaccio, & Petrarca Wks. 1853 I. 404/2 He had about him a powder of sternutatory quality. |
2. Of or pertaining to sneezing. (In quots. humorously pedantic.)
| 1842 Thackeray Fitz-Boodle Papers Pref., He..was seized with a violent fit of sneezing—(sternutatory paroxysm he called it). 1858 Lewes in Chamb. Jrnl. 19 June 399/2 The showers of snuff which had too often attacked my sternutatory muscles. 1859 F. E. Paget Curate Cumberworth 329 Miss Martha replied by a sneeze. A terror seizing me lest this sternutatory conclusion might be a preliminary to another fit of hysterics, I immediately took my leave. |
B. n. A substance that causes sneezing; esp. a drug, usually in the form of powder, used to excite sneezing; an errhine.
| 1634 T. Johnson Parey's Wks. xxvi. xxxv. (1678) 654 Drie Errhines that are termed sternutatories, for that they cause sneezing, are made of powders onely. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iv. ix. 200 Physitians..in persons neere death doe use Sternutatories, or such as provoke unto sneezing. 1722 Quincy Lex. Physico-Med. (ed. 2) 15 Vomits and Sternutatories. 1811 A. T. Thomson Lond. Disp. (1818) 273 Tobacco is chiefly employed as a sternutatory, and is the basis of all the kinds of snuff generally used. 1876 tr. Wagner's Gen. Pathol. 29 Muscular irritability is excited..by powerful light, by sternutatories, [etc.]. |