‖ hiera picra Pharmacy.
(ˈhaɪərə ˈpɪkrə)
[med.L., Gr. ἱερά (fem. of ἱερός sacred), a name given to many medicines in the Greek pharmacopœia + πικρά, fem. of πικρός bitter. The form in quot. 1400 is from OF. gerapigre.]
A purgative drug composed of aloes and canella bark, sometimes mixed with honey and other ingredients. Also corruptly hickery-pickery, hicra picra, higry-pigry, which see.
| 1379–80 Durh. MS. Burs. Roll, In di. libr. de Gira pigra, xiid. c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 238 Ierapigre þat entriþ in pululas. 1616 Bullokar, Hiera picra,..often vsed in Phisicke to purge Choler out of the Stomacke. 1677 Wood Life (O.H.S.) II. 378, 6 pills of Hiera picra. 1754 Mrs. Delany Life & Corr. (1861) III. 268 He takes nervous draughts and hiera picra. 1896 Daily News 14 Dec. 6/6 Charged..with unlawfully conveying a packet of hiera picra, a powerful drug, into Holloway Gaol. |
b. fig. (with allusion to the etymology).
| a 1639 S. Ward Serm. (1862) 76 (D.) There is too much of this bitter zeal, of this Hierapicra in all our books of controversies. |