| 释义 |
‖ 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.
1379–80Durh. MS. Burs. Roll, In di. libr. de Gira pigra, xiid. c1400Lanfranc's Cirurg. 238 Ierapigre þat entriþ in pululas. 1616Bullokar, Hiera picra,..often vsed in Phisicke to purge Choler out of the Stomacke. 1677Wood Life (O.H.S.) II. 378, 6 pills of Hiera picra. 1754Mrs. Delany Life & Corr. (1861) III. 268 He takes nervous draughts and hiera picra. 1896Daily 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).
a1639S. Ward Serm. (1862) 76 (D.) There is too much of this bitter zeal, of this Hierapicra in all our books of controversies. |