ˈsnake-weed
Also snakeweed.
[snake n.]
1. The plant bistort, Polygonum bistorta.
In dial. use the name has also been applied to other species of Polygonum, as P. lapathifolium and P. viviparum; and to the plants Mercurialis perennis, dog's mercury, and Cicuta maculata, an American hemlock.
| 1597 Gerarde Herbal ii. lxxxi. 323 Bistorta is called in English Snakeweede. Ibid., Broade leafed Snakeweede. 1601 R. Chester Love's Martyr (1878) 90 Dwarfe gentian, Snakeweed, and Sommer Sauory. 1611 Cotgr., Bistorte, Bistort,..Snakeweed. 1707 Curios. in Husb. & Gard. 284 Mountebanks..instead of Mandrakes..sell the Roots of Bryony or of Snake-weed. 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. 327 Snakeweed, Polygonum. 1852 C. Morfit Tanning & Currying (1853) 40 Certain annual plants—as the septfoil and bistort, or snake-weed. 1887 Brit. Med. Jrnl. Feb. 424 The rhizome of snake-weed..is successfully used by the Lithuanian peasantry as a prophylactic in cases of bite by rabid animals. |
2. = snake-root 1.
| 1631 Winthrop Hist. New Eng. (1825) I. 62 He always carried about with him match and a compass, and in summer time snake-weed. 1671 Salmon Syn. Med. iii. xxii. 392 Snakeweed. The root of the Virginian cures the Plague, poyson, Pox [etc.]. 1725 Fam. Dict. s.v. Fryars-Balsam, Infuse in it..one Ounce of Virginia Snake-weed cut small. 1855 Dunglison Dict. Med. Sci. (ed. 12) 100 Aristolochia Serpentaria,..Virginian Snakeroot,..Snake⁓weed. |