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Astringent   Listen
adjective
Astringent  adj.  
1.
Drawing together the tissues; binding; contracting; opposed to laxative; as, astringent medicines; a butter and astringent taste; astringent fruit.
2.
Stern; austere; as, an astringent type of virtue.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Astringent" Quotes from Famous Books



... it allays the itching, and gradually dries up the swellings, though they are very stubborn after they have once appeared. But an application every few hours keeps down the intolerable itching, which is the most annoying feature of sumach poisoning. In addition to this, the ordinary astringent ointments are useful, as is also that sovereign lotion, "lead-water and laudanum." Mr. Morris adds to these a preventive prescription of ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... many varieties of Cyprus wines, there is one prevailing rule: the white commanderia, a luscious high-flavoured wine, is grown upon the reddish chocolate-coloured soil of metamorphous rocks. The dark red, or black astringent wines, are produced upon the white marls and cretaceous limestone. The quantity produced is large, and the dark wines can be purchased retail in the villages for one penny the quart bottle!—and in my opinion are very dear at ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... temperature below boiling point. Cotton and linen are more difficult to dye than wool or silk. Their fibre is not so porous and will not hold the dye stuff without a more complicated preparation. The usual method of preparing linen or cotton is to boil it first with some astringent. The use of astringents in dyeing depends upon the tannic acid they contain. In combination with ordinary mordants, tannic acid aids the attraction of the colouring matter to the fibre and adds brilliancy to the ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet

... you are in the hands of a living God. In the Book of Job, for example, the impotence of man and the omnipotence of God is the exclusive burden of its author's mind. "It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?—deeper than hell; what canst thou know?" There is an astringent relish about the truth of this conviction which some men can feel, and which for them is as near an approach as can be made to the feeling of ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... astringent extracts, such as sumac, myrabolam, divi, valonia, quebracho, oak, etc., it is the aim of the manufacturer, whenever such extracts are intended for the purposes of dyeing and printing, to obtain the tannin ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... the most objectionable. Ammonia alum is without doubt the worst form, since all of the ammonium compounds have an extremely irritating effect on animal tissue. Sulphates of sodium and potassium are also objectionable. Aluminium hydroxide is soluble in the slightly acid gastric juice and has an astringent action on animal tissue, hindering digestion in a way similar to the alum itself. Many of the alum powders contain also mono-calcium phosphate; ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... common earth will grow up the special flower, true to its own individual law, which is just as sacred and unalterable as the general law. All the art of the gardener cannot transform the oak to a willow, or produce the blue dahlia, though by its aid the sour crab has become a mellow apple, and the astringent pear, the luscious Bartlett. We need to study the great subject of education more, and to talk less about the special peculiarities of woman's education, and we shall find that the greater includes the less, and that the more thoroughly we develop all the powers of mind, the more ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... discussing his theories, denouncing or approving his conception of life. The struggle was past, his royalties were making him rich. And here he was this night, drinking the cup of bitterness, of unhappiness, the astringent draft of things that might and should have been. The coveted grape was sour, the desired apple was withered. Those who traverse the road with Folly as ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... were excellent, but we also found that our tea leaves, which had been boiled twice and would otherwise have been thrown away, relieved the pain if tied into some cotton and kept pressed against the eyes. The tannic acid in the tea acted as an astringent. A snowblind man can see practically nothing anyhow and so he is not much worse off if a handkerchief is ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... preparing for him not a sedative but a stimulant, he had little doubt as he went slowly on his way to the gallery: but of the astringent nature of that mixture he had equally small idea, until he turned the last corner, and came in sight of the Countess's face. There was an aspect of the avenging angel about Lady Oxford, as she stood up, tall and stately, in that corner of the gallery, and ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... the Bechuana country, where it is called "mositsane," and is a mere plant; here it becomes a tree, from fifteen to twenty feet high. The root is used for tanning; the bean is pounded, and then put into a sieve of bark cloth to extract, by repeated washings, the excessively astringent matter it contains. Where the people have plenty of water, as here, it is used copiously in various processes, among Bechuanas it is scarce, and its many uses unknown: the pod becomes from fifteen to eighteen inches long, and an inch ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... the family of Asclepiadaceae, which have all something more or less 'fleshy' looking about some parts of them, which, like the Apocyneae, were in the old world credited with medicinal properties, and which are generally acrid, stimulating, and astringent. There are many poisonous members of the family, such as the dog's-bane and wolf's-bane of our own country, favourite plants with the enchanters, while the cowplant of Ceylon is of ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... clearly put forth. Similarly, when at the very time that Punch was making the most of any fun that could be got out of his Jewish butt, the "Strangers' Friend Society" appealed for funds on the ground that the urgency of their charitable needs would "dissolve even the hardest, the most magnetic astringent Jewish mind," Punch vigorously protested against the quaintness of that virtue and charity which would batten upon the faithful by tickling their pet prejudice against the Jews, and declared that "the Society's healing ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... loosed. That is our task to-day. In the person of Wagner I recognise one of these anti-Alexanders: he rivets and locks together all that is isolated, weak, or in any way defective; if I may be allowed to use a medical expression, he has an astringent power. And in this respect he is one of the greatest civilising forces of his age. He dominates art, religion, and folklore, yet he is the reverse of a polyhistor or of a mere collecting and classifying spirit; for he constructs with the collected material, and breathes life into it, and is a Simplifier ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... great bunches of goldenrod, a pink anemone, harebells of a more delicate blue than we had ever seen before, the flower of the wolf-berry, fireweed, and ladies'-tresses. The third day we identified the bear-berry or kinnikinic-tobacco (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) with its astringent leaves, and that dear friend of lower latitudes and far-away days, the pink lady-slipper. The last time we had seen it was in a school-room in far-off Vancouver Island where in early April the children had brought it in, drooping in their hot little fists. This same evening, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... is thick and leathery. The central portion is composed of little globules of pulp and seeds inclosed in a thin membrane, each seed being about the size of a red currant. It is sub-acid, and slightly bitter in taste. The rind is strongly astringent, and often used ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... with an astringent "How d'you do, Mr. Babbitt. Tanis tells me you're a very prominent man, and I'm honored by being allowed to drive with you. Of course I'm not accustomed to associating with society people like you, so I don't know how to act in ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... an inch and a half broad, is white, and is composed of five petals; its fruit is about the size of a large hen's egg; it is shaped like our medlar, but its substance is sweeter and more delicate. This fruit is astringent; {210} when it is quite ripe the natives make bread of it, which they keep from year to year; and the bread has this remarkable property that it will stop the most violent looseness or dysentery; therefore it ought to be used with caution, and only after ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... with a very long and full beard, in which all the people here take pride, is plastered with a thick paste, of the consistence of hog's lard, and not less than two pounds weight of which is sometimes used on one person. It possesses a strongly astringent and penetrating quality, and requires great skill in the use of it, to avoid doing considerable mischief. As the eye-brows are plastered with it, as well as the rest of the hair, and as it softens by the heat of the room and of the body, it frequently ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various

... Art, as it is ground, stirred, and made fine, in the preparing of it; the Sulphurous parts, and those of quick-silver, being thinne, active, and penetrative, they mingle, at the last with those parts, which are Earthy and astringent: Insomuch, that they being mingled after this manner one with another, we cannot now say, that the steele is astringent, but rather, that it is penetrative, attenuating and opening. Let us prove this Doctrine by Authorities; ...
— Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma

... as the cloth dries, which at first will be every few minutes. The pain will immediately cease, and after twenty-four hours of this treatment the burn will be healed; especially if commenced before blisters are formed. The astringent and drying qualities of the alum will entirely prevent their formation. 4. Glycerine, five ounces; white of egg, four ounces; tincture of arnica, three ounces. Mix the glycerine and white of egg thoroughly in a mortar, and gradually ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... some willow boughs: having brought no medicine he determined to try an experiment with the small twigs of the chokecherry, which being stripped of their leaves and cut into pieces about two inches long were boiled in pure water, till they produced a strong black decoction of an astringent bitter taste; a pint of this he took at sunset, and repeated the dose an hour afterwards. By ten o'clock he was perfectly relieved from pain, a gentle perspiration ensued, his fever abated and in the morning he was quite recovered. One of the men caught several dozen ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... fruit is too sour for use, unless for preserves. Crab apples are equally prolific, and make fine preserves with about double their bulk of sugar. Wild cherries are equally productive. The persimmon is a delicious fruit, after the frost has destroyed its astringent properties. The black mulberry grows in most parts, and is used for the feeding of silk-worms with success. They appear to thrive and spin as well as on the Italian mulberry. The gooseberry, strawberry, and blackberry, grow wild and in great profusion. Of our nuts, the ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... var. mollis) is a small, handsome tree seldom more than a foot in diameter at the base. It makes valuable lumber and its black, astringent fruit furnishes a rich resource as food for the birds. A smaller form is common in the Sierra, the fruit of which is eagerly eaten by the Indians and hunters ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... peat of any kind impregnated with sulphate of iron (copperas,) and sulphate of alumina, (the astringent ingredient of alum.) ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... treated with oxygen, which neutralises the injurious tannin. Every pound of ordinary tea contains about two ounces of tannin. Tannin is a powerful astringent substance to tan skins into leather. The tannin in ordinary tea tans, or hardens, the lining of the digestive organs, also the food eaten. This prevents the healthful nourishment of the body, and undoubtedly eventuates ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill

... rain of all its idiosyncrasies. Why has he not lifted up his voice? He, the book clerk, that lives among countless volumes of confessions! Whose daily task is to wrestle hour by hour with a living Comedie Humaine! Has the constant spectacle of so many books been astringent in its effect upon any latent creative impulse? Or has he been dumb in the colloquial sense, forsooth; a figure like Mr. Whistler's guard in the British Museum? Sundry "lettered booksellers" of England have, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... has much the same effect as coffee drinking, except that it is decidedly constipating. Perhaps this is because there is considerable of the astringent ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... fungus is pleasant in flavour and odour, it may be considered wholesome; if, on the contrary, it have an offensive smell, a bitter, astringent, or styptic taste, or even if it leave an unpleasant flavour in the mouth, it should not be considered fit for food. The colour, figure, and texture of these vegetables do not afford any characters on which we can safely rely; yet it may be remarked, that in colour, the pure yellow, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various

... only a perfect sympathy and community of thought; and I should doubtless misrepresent the author quoted were I to claim an entire identity of the idea he wishes to convey, and that now under consideration. Yet what, after all, is sympathy but the loosening of that hard "astringent" quality (to use Bohme's phrase) wherein individualism consists? And just as in true sympathy, the partial suppression of individualism and of what is distinctive, we experience a superior delight and intensity of being, so it may be that in parting with all that ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... ago Dr. Wiley, the former Government Chemist, published the ingredients of a number of popular remedies for colds, coughs and catarrh. Every one of them contained some powerful opiate or astringent. These poisonous drugs relieve the cough and the catarrhal conditions by paralyzing the eliminative activity of the membranous linings of the nasal passages, the bronchi and lungs, the digestive and genitourinary organs; but in doing so, they throw ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... that can be cut out, contracted, and healed up with common, that is, soft, cool, and gently astringent dressings, and at last left as an issue on the part, may, by a cow's milk and seed diet continued ever afterward, be made as easy to the patient, and his life and health as long preserved, almost, as if he had never been afflicted with it; especially ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... under the charge and charm of an affectionate fairy, and becomes a joyfully patriotic inheritor of wilder scenes and skies. Medicinal, to soul and body alike, this gracious and domestic flower; though astringent and bitter in the juice. It is the Welsh deeply honoured 'Fluellen.'—See final note on the myth of Veronica, see ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... Various other plants possess the essential principle of tea, and are used as such; as in Paraguay, where the Brazilian holly is dried, and makes a tea very exhilarating in quality, but much more astringent. ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... pandanus, as it is used by these Indians and by the natives of Terra Australis, affords very little nourishment. They suck the bottom part of the drupes, or separated nuts, as we do the leaves of the artichoke; but the quantity of pulp thus obtained, is very small, and to my taste, too astringent to be agreeable. In the third volume of the Asiatic Researches, the fruit of the pandanus is described as furnishing, under the name of Mellori, an important article of food to the inhabitants of the Nicobar ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... cockshobby, a right honest man, and I love you with all my heart. Eat a little of this quince-pie; it is very proper and convenient for the shutting up of the orifice of the ventricle of the stomach, because of a kind of astringent stypticity which is in that sort of fruit, and is helpful to the first concoction. But what? I think I speak Latin before clerks. Stay till I give you somewhat to drink out of this Nestorian goblet. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... relief of the moment. In the case of tea, besides the stimulating effect, a certain substance known as tannin is developed, particularly when the tea is boiled, and this substance is really harmful on account of its strong astringent property, which acts injuriously on the membrane of the stomach. The bitter taste of the tannin is disguised when milk is used with the tea, and it has been pointed out that tea used without milk or cream is safer than tea with milk, because without the ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... words acted like an astringent on Molly's relaxed feelings. He intended that they should do so; it was the truest kindness to her; but he walked away from her with a sharp pang at his heart, which he stunned into numbness as soon as he could by throwing himself violently ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Cinnabaris' of Pliny, [Footnote: N.H. xxxiii. 38.] who holds it to be the sanies of the dragon mixed with the blood of the dying elephant. The same semi-mystical name is given to the sap by the Arab pharmists: in the Middle Ages this strong astringent resin was a sovereign cure for all complaints; now it is used chiefly for varnishes. The gum forms great gouts like blood where the bark is wounded or fissured: at first it is soft as that of the cherry, but it hardens by exposure to a dry red ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... before she perceived some pretty grassy-looking plants, with heads of bright lilac flowers, and on plucking some pulled up the root also. The root was about the size and shape of a large crocus, and, on biting it, she found it far from disagreeable, sweet, and slightly astringent; it seemed to be a favourite root with the wood-chucks, for she noticed that it grew about their burrows on dry gravelly soil, and many of the stems were bitten, and the roots eaten, a warrant in full of wholesomeness. Therefore, carrying ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... protection," said the doctor. "It keeps the system slightly stimulated; and is, besides, a good astringent." ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... leather with very great expedition, by steeping the hide first in a mixture of wood-ashes and water, until it parts with the hair; and afterwards by using the pounded leaves of a tree called goo, as an astringent. They are at great pains to render the hide as soft and pliant as possible, by rubbing it frequently between their hands, and beating it upon a stone. The hides of bullocks are converted chiefly into sandals, and therefore require ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... guiltily, and then raised them full of an extraordinary laughing light, as if she was beyond all reason delighted to have her secret thoughts discovered. "How you see through me, dear!" she said in a voice that was rallying and affectionate, charged with an astringent form of love. "All that I wanted to say was simply that I am so very glad you have come. Perhaps for reasons that you'll consider tiresome of me. But Richard has been so much away, and even when he's at home he is out at the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... and the fresh provisions it afforded. The beer certainly contributed not a little. As I have already observed, we at first made it of a decoction of the spruce leaves; but finding that this alone made the beer too astringent, we afterwards mixed with it an equal quantity of the tea plant (a name it obtained in my former voyage, from our using it as tea then as we also did now,) which partly destroyed the astringency of the other, and ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... gets a piece of dry bread and a tin of water for its supper. This diet in the case of a strong grown man is always productive of illness of some kind, chiefly of course diarrhoea, with its attendant weakness. In fact, in a big prison astringent medicines are served out regularly by the warders as a matter of course. In the case of a child, the child is, as a rule, incapable of eating the food at all. Any one who knows anything about children knows how easily ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... guyava, Linn.) (Tagalog, Bayabas) of very fine quality, from which jelly is made, are found wild in great abundance. They are so plentiful on waste lands that I have never seen them cultivated. The peel is an excellent astringent. Lemons [153] of two kinds are grown—sometimes as many as a dozen of the small species, about the size of a walnut, may be seen hanging at one time on a tree only 18 inches high; a well-known small species is called Dayap in Tagalog. Mangosteens, the delicate ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... consequence. The man who, destitute of exertion, tills his land, disregarding the season of rain, never succeeds in obtaining a harvest. He who takes every day food that is nutritive, be it bitter or astringent or palatable or sweet, enjoys a long life. He, on the other hand, who disregards wholesome food and takes that which is injurious without an eye to consequences, soon meets with death. Destiny and exertion exist, depending upon each other. They that are of high souls achieve good and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... This, in size and appearance, is not unlike a damascene; but in taste is still more astringent, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... herb (Polygonum bistorta) with cylindrical spikes of pink flowers and a rhizome used as an astringent in folk medicine. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... advantage. In summer, when the thistles are green, even when growing near the burrows, and the giant thistle (Carduus mariana) springs up most luxuriantly right on the mound, the vizcachas will not touch them, either disliking the strong astringent sap, or repelled by the thorns with which they are armed. As soon as they dry, and the thorns become brittle, they are levelled; afterwards, when the animal begins to drag them about and cut them up, as his custom is, he accidentally discovers and ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... chap. 26. Dr. Huxham, in his Essay on Fevers, has the following very judicious Remark on the Use of Wine: "In this View, and in those above-mentioned, I cannot but recommend a generous red Wine as a most noble, natural sub-astringent Cordial, and perhaps Art can scarce supply a better. Of this I am confident, that sometimes at the State, and more frequently in the Decline of putrid Malignant Fevers, it is of the highest Service, especially when ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... dressed with astringent herbs, and his broken leg put into splints in accordance with the rude but not ineffective surgery of the time, he was placed on a rough litter of interlaced branches and carried back by the reluctant warriors ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... is used for removing ink and rust stains, and remnants of mud stains, which do not yield to other deterrents. It may also be used for destroying the stains of fruits and astringent juices, and old stains of urine. However, its use is limited to white goods, as it attacks fugitive colors and even light shades of those reputed to be fast. The best method of applying it is to dissolve it in cold or luke-warm ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... milk and salt may be added, or lemon juice and sugar. Barley water is an astringent or demulcent drink used ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber

... mimosas (Acacia Arabica) produces a fruit in appearance resembling a tamarind: this is a powerful astringent and a valuable medicine in cases of fever and diarrhoea; it is generally used by the Arabs for preparing hides; when dry and broken it is rich in a hard gum, which appears to be ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... cut away a part of the fresco including the feet of the Christ to make a doorway. In 1726 one Michelangelo Belotti, an obscure Milanese painter, received L300 for the worthless labour he bestowed on restoring it. He seems to have employed some astringent restorative which revived the colours temporarily, and then left them in deeper eclipse than before. In 1770 the fresco was again restored by Mazza. In 1796 Napoleon's cavalry, contrary to his express orders, turned the refectory ...
— Leonardo da Vinci • Maurice W. Brockwell

... style built up out of nervous rhythms and an instinctive reticence of personal attitude which Miss Cather only shares with Sherwood Anderson among her American compatriots. She is more assured in the traditional quality of her work than Anderson, but hardly less astringent. I regard this book as one of the most important contributions to the American short story published during the past year, and personally I consider it more significant than ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the next with, in the beginning, many a scrape on the rocks of the river bed, my nervous system contracted steadily till, at the foot where we slipped out into smooth water again, it felt as if dipped into an astringent. ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... are a dull or reddish purple. The foliage is rough and clammy; the form of leaf resembles that of H. glabra (see Fig. 51), but the colour is a lighter green. All the genus are of an astringent nature, but this species is remarkably so, and in its native country has earned for the family ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... usually regarded as a weed, but sheep are very fond of it, and when they can get it, never fail to eat it greedily. It possesses astringent properties. Some writers have recommended it as a good crop for warrens and sands. Its composition, according to Way, ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... we find no trace of sentimentalism. Their masculine mood both of body and mind left no room for it, and hence the bracing quality of their literature compared with that of recent times, its tonic property, that seems almost too astringent to palates relaxed by a daintier diet. The first great example of the degenerate modern tendency was Petrarch, who may be said to have given it impulse and direction. A more perfect specimen of the type has not since appeared. An intellectual ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... as it does, largely through forests and past vegetable banks, takes up a large quantity of albuminous matter, which is so great in quantity that the atmosphere, or the oxygen in the air, cannot purify it by the time it reaches us, so that if any astringent matter like oak, or birch, or beech, or even alum, is put in the water it will cause the albumen to precipitate. In the district of La Gironde, France, the waters of the Landes are naturally very impure from these causes, but since the cutting and floating down of the immense oak forests, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... swish of a branch— there is no scent of resin in this place, no taste of bark, of coarse weeds, aromatic, astringent— only border on border of ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle

... seen a black kangaroo with a white point at the end of the tail. Brown brought the fruit of a tree, which, according to his account, had the simple pinnate-leaf of the red cedar (Credela) with a dark purple-coloured fruit half an inch long, and one inch in diameter, with a thin astringent pericarp: the stony seed-vessel consisted of many carpels, which, if I remember rightly, were monosperme. It belongs probably ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... very brown firm Shells, and when the Kernel is taken out, it ought to be plump, well nourish'd, and sleek; of the Colour of a Hazle-Nut on the outside, but more inclining to a Red within; its Taste a little bitter and astringent, not at all sour or mouldy[z]. In a word, without ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus

... boom had held her nose up until the weight was too much for it, and, with its parting, the little craft assumed nearly an even keel, while the water rushed forward among the battery jars beneath the deck. Then a strong, astringent odor arose through the seams in the deck, and Ross ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... yards of both of them, mysterious and withdrawn as ever, busy at something or other. And it was naught to Johnnie! By the thought of all this the woe in him was strengthened and embittered. Nevertheless his youth, aided by the astringent quality of the clear dawn, still struggled sturdily against it. And he ate six times more breakfast than his suffering ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... of food, and their use restricted to medicine; others fell into disuse, and only reappeared at sacrifices, or at funeral feasts; several varieties continue to be eaten to the present time—the acid fruits of the nabeca and of the carob tree, the astringent figs of the sycamore, the insipid pulp of the dam-palm, besides those which are pleasant to our Western palates, such as the common fig and the date. The vine flourished, at least in Middle and Lower Egypt; from time immemorial the art of making wine from ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the word sabracia, which is not found in Ducange, or other glossaries of debased Latinity. Mr. Halliwell gives "Sabras, salve, plaster;" but he cites no authority. It appears, however, rather to signify a tonic or astringent solution than a salve. I have hitherto found it only in the following passage (Sloane MS. 73., f. 211., late xv. sec.) in a recipe for making "cheuerel lether of perchemyne." The directions are, that it be "basked to and fro" ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various

... we might not otherwise have time to manufacture a further supply. Our difficulty was to cook it. We had seen it eaten boiled with water. It then forms a thick glutinous mass, and salt is mixed with it to give it flavour, as it is of a somewhat astringent taste. We tried boiling some in one of our shells; but before the sago was sufficiently boiled the shell caught fire. We, however, managed to eat it, and mixing it with salt, found it palatable. We then determined to try and make some bread of it. To do this, however, we had to build an oven. This, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... Turin. The first nightingale I have heard this year is to-day (18th). There is a red wine of Nebiule made in this neighborhood, which is very singular. It is about as sweet as the silky Madeira, as astringent on the palate as Bordeaux, and as brisk as Champagne. It is a pleasing wine. At Moncaglieri, about six miles from Turin, on the right side of the Po, begins a ridge of mountains, which, following the Po by Turin, after some ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... The active principle of tea is called theine; that of coffee, caffeine, and of cocoa, theobromine. They also contain an aromatic, volatile oil, to which they owe their distinctive flavor. Tea and coffee also contain an astringent called tannin, which gives the peculiar bitter taste to the infusions when steeped too long. In cocoa, the fat known as cocoa butter amounts to fifty ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... bramble-berries, cran-berries, hurtle-berries, heath-berries, a small red berry, which, in Newfoundland, is called partridge-berry, and another brown berry, unknown to us. This has somewhat of the taste of a sloe, but is unlike it in every other respect. It is very astringent, if eaten in any quantity. Brandy might be distilled from it. Captain Clerke attempted to preserve some; but they fermented, and became as strong as if they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... others; and never hesitated to express his judgment of a book for the reason that it was written by himself: yet he could bear with gentleness any dissent from the estimate lie placed on his own writings. His character was like the bark of the cinnamon, a rough and astringent rind without, and an intense sweetness within. Those who penetrated below the surface found a genial temper, warm affections, and a heart with ample place for his friends, their pursuits, their good name, their welfare. They found him a philanthropist, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... dusted over with very fine powder of gum sandarach, and then replaced. Astringent fomentations; as an infusion of oak-bark, or a slight solution of alum. Horizontal rest frequently ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... back the shutters. A young woman, tall, with a superb bust, clothed in blue, was sweeping the footpath in long, dignified strokes of a broom. She went slowly from my ken. Nothing could have been more prosaic, more sane, more astringent. And yet only a few hours—and it had been night, strange, voluptuous night! And even now a thousand thousand pillows were warm and crushed under their burden of unconscious dreaming souls. But that tall woman must go to bed in day, and rise to meet the first wind of the morning, and perhaps ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... that they were commonly eaten with the thus Syriacum, a certain anodyne and astringent seed, which qualified the purgative nature of the fish. This learned physician gave them to understand, that though this was reckoned a luxurious fish in the zenith of the Roman taste, it was by ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Surgeon, Egham.—"As an astringent in severe Diarrhoea, and an anti-spasmodic in Colic, with Cramps in the Abdomen, the relief is instantaneous. As a sedative in Neuralgia and Tic-Doloreux its effects were very remarkable. In Uterine Affections I ...
— A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes • Charles Elme Francatelli

... where the snake holder had halted beside a sangre de dragon tree. One of the Indians followed and began to cut stakes from the tree. The sap of the tree was as red as blood and so astringent that when Slade dabbed a little on his cheek the wound at once ceased ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... in preparing it, and she must have put the package in the post at Crewe. Secretive and delightful little thing! After his recent experience beyond the bay he had imagined himself to be incapable of ever eating again, but it was not so. The lemon gave a peculiar astringent, appetising, settling quality to the chocolate. And he ate even with gusto. The result was that, instead of waiting for the nine o'clock boarding-house breakfast, he hurried energetically into the streets ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... nostrils, will relieve almost instantly the itching which accompanies this. If strong acid be used, matters are made worse, and great pain caused. The acid, weak as we have described, at once neutralises the irritating substance exuded from the eruption. It also prepares the way for a cure. If astringent lotions are employed, drying the sore, and driving it in on the brain, serious injury may be caused. But if healing takes place under soaking with weak acid, no such result need be feared, for this simply removes the unhealthy state of the part. Water, especially hard water, must be ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... by fumigation "pains in the bones." Here also we saw for the first time the quaint distaff-shape of the purple red Masrr (Cynomorium coccineum, Linn.), from which the Bedawi "cook bread." It is eaten simply peeled and sun-dried, when it has a vegetable taste slightly astringent as if by tannin, something between a potato and a turnip; or its rudely pounded flour is made into balls with soured milk. This styptic, I am told by Mr. R. B. Sharpe, of the British Museum, was long supposed to be peculiar ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... The inner bark of the tulip-tree has the wildest of all wild tastes, a peculiarly grateful flavor when taken infinitesimally, something more savage than sassafras or spice-wood, and full of all manner of bitter hints and astringent threatenings: it has long been used as the very best appetizer for horses in the early spring, and it is equally good for man. The yellow-bellied woodpecker knows its value, taking it with head jauntily awry and quiet wing-tremblings ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... to morbid introspection. Stoddard, in avoiding that danger, had thrown the doors of the Church too widely open, and the result was a gradual undermining of its spiritual power. The continued acceptance of the Half-Way Covenant, "laxative rather than astringent in its nature," helped to produce a low estimate of religion. The tenderness that the Cambridge Platform had encouraged towards "the weakest measure of faith" had broadened into such laxity that, in many cases, ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... well to shut—at least, sometimes— The women up, because, in sad reality, Their chastity in these unhappy climes Is not a thing of that astringent quality Which in the North prevents precocious crimes, And makes our snow less pure than our morality; The sun, which yearly melts the polar ice, Has quite ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... (taste), that quality of things which can be apprehended only by the tongue; these are sweet, sour, pungent (ka@tu), astringent (ka@saya) and bitter (tikta). Only k@siti and ap have taste. The natural taste of ap is sweetness. Rasa like rupa also denotes the genus rasatva, and rasa as quality must be distinguished from rasa as genus, though both of them are apprehended ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... little use except when it occurs in fences. The fruit is a fine acid, and is much used by the common people, mixed with other fruits less astringent and acid, to flavour made wines. It is believed that much Port wine is improved by ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... (bind): (1) district, restrict, strictly, stringent, strain, restrain, constrain; (2) stricture, constriction, boa constrictor, astringent, strait, stress. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... of perry pears, but certain sorts have a great reputation, such as Moorcroft, Barland, Malvern Hills, Longdon, Red Horse, Mother Huff Cap, and Chate Boy (cheat boy), a particularly astringent pear; these are all small, and require quickly grinding when gathered. In the New Forest there is a perry pear similar to the Chate Boy, called Choke Dog, which in its natural state, is quite as rough on the palate as the former, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... rubbing and rolling of the flesh between the fingers will gradually dissolve the fatty tissues. The flesh will then become soft and flabby, and the skin will be likely to fall into tiny lines unless an astringent wash, like weak alum water (used hot), is applied to tighten and harden it slightly, and so make the flesh firm. If the massage is continued, the flabby flesh will also be reduced, especially when the astringent wash is applied to help the hardening ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... system. But this theory has not led to any effective treatment. Drugs in great variety were tried in the continental hospitals in 1892, but without any distinct success. The old controversy between the aperient and the astringent treatment reappeared. In Russia the former, which aims at evacuating the poison, was more generally adopted; in Germany the latter, which tries to conserve strength by stopping the flux, found more favour. Two ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... of alum in eight ounces (half a pint) of water. Use as astringent wash. When twice as much alum and only half the quantity of water are used, it acts as a discutient, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... we can try some of them; but they must be roasted. The fruit can be eaten as it is, but it is like the persimmon; it must be fully ripe, or it will be too astringent. It is a fine medicine, and the sap of the tree produces a product like gum arabic, and is known in ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay

... timber-producing tree, this red cedar has many medicinal properties. The bark is spoken of as a powerful astringent, and, though not bitter, said to be a good substitute for Peruvian bark in the cure of ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... gatissima, Gaert.) is a fruit of the pear form, and dark-brown in color. The rind is tough and elastic, but not very thick. The edible substance, which is soft and green, encloses a kernel resembling a chestnut in form and color. This fruit is very astringent and bitter, and on being cut, a juice flows from it which is at first yellow, but soon turns black. The taste is peculiar, and at first not agreeable to a foreigner; but it is generally much liked when the palate becomes accustomed ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... interpretation of this word. He says there are numerous instances of the use of d'd' (which he transliterates doudouiou) in the medical papyri. In the Ebers papyrus "doudou d'Elephantine broye" is prescribed as a remedy for external application in diseases of the heart, and as an astringent and emollient dressing for ulcers. He says the substance was brought to Elephantine from the interior of Africa and the ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... and it was not long before she perceived some pretty grassy-looking plants, with heads of bright lilac flowers, and on plucking one pulled up the root also. The root was about the size and shape of a large crocus: and on biting it, she found it far from disagreeable—sweet, and slightly astringent. It seemed to be a favourite root with the woodchucks, for she noticed that it grew about their burrows on dry, gravelly soil, and many of the stems were bitten and the roots eaten—a warrant, in full, of wholesomeness. ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill

... tan, and the root by which the tan had been furnished, down to the last on which they had been moulded, and the artisan that had cast them off, a pair of finished shoes. There are few trees, and, of course, no bark to spare, in the island; but the islanders find a substitute in the astringent lobiferous root of the Tormentilla erecta, which they dig out for the purpose among the heath, at no inconsiderable expense of time and trouble. I was informed by John Stewart, an adept in all the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... Tannin is an astringent of vegetable origin which exists in tea, is also found in coffee and wines, and is very injurious. Tea is a preparation made from the leaves of a shrub called Thea. The difference between black and green ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless

... red lacquer box containing betel, which is universally chewed. Betel is the nut of the areca-palm, and before being used is rolled between leaves on which a little lime is spread. The flavour is astringent and produces excessive expectoration, and, by its irritation, gives to the tongue and lips a curious bright pink colour. Still, it is considered an excellent stomach tonic, and so far as one can judge has no worse effect than to blacken the teeth of ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly

... original and interesting of American poets. There is something Chaucerian about the quizzical and whimsical manner in which he tells his brief and homely stories. His characters are penetrated with the bleak and yet cheerful tone of the "Middle West." Something quaint, humorous and astringent ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... the Catawba is often compared to Hock, in the wine of Norton's Virginia, we have one of an entirely different character; and it is a conceded fact that the best red wines of Europe are surpassed by the Norton as an astringent, dark red wine, of great body, fine flavor, and superior medical quality. Vine vigorous and hardy, productive; starting a week later in the Spring than the Catawba, yet coloring a week sooner; and will succeed in almost any soil, although producing the richest wine in warm, southern aspects. ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann

... mignionette, and are excellent for pies and tarts. The persimon is a fruit to which you are a stranger; it may be ranked with the plums, but has four stones, and is not fit to eat till bitten by the frost, when its austere and astringent taste disappears, and it becomes nearly transparent, and as rich and sweet as Guava jelly. The May-apple, or Mandrake, a wild fruit, is a favourite with our young folks; it grows on a single-steemed plant, usually one foot high, and is about the size of a plum, but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various

... explicitness, and the injury resulting from incomplete coitus to both parties has been made evident to all who are willing to be convinced. It should require but a moment's consideration to convince any one of the harmfulness of the common use of cold ablutions and astringent infusions and various medicated washes. Simple and often wonderfully salutary as is cold water to a diseased limb, festering with inflammation, yet few are rash enough to cover a gouty toe, rheumatic knee, or erysipelatous ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... lilco-chiadi, or salt from the water of rocks. They procured dyes of various colours for their clothes, both from the juice of plants and from mineral earths, and had discovered the art of fixing them by means of the polcura, an aluminous or astringent mineral. Instead of soap, they used the back of the quillai, which is an excellent substitute. In their language there are many words discriminative of various kinds of baskets and mats, which they manufactured from various vegetables. From a plant called gnocchia, they procured a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... "Why, what better astringent can you have than tannic acid?" the old gentleman called down the table. "I suppose you drink those washy abominations that the young men of the day prefer to honest wine; what's that I hear about lemonade? Lemonade!" he ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... have H. alba, H. glabra, H. villosa, H. glabra pallida, H. glabra odorata, H. glabra microcarpa, H. Mexicana, H. Buckleyi, and H. myristicaeformis. In another group of hickories with temptingly thin shells and plump kernels, we have a bitter or astringent pellicle of the kernel. This group contains H. Texana, H. minima, and H. aquatica. Sometimes in the bitter group we find individual trees with edible nuts, and it is not unlikely that some of them represent hybrids in which the bitter and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association

... Woodhall. Within the nineties, he, with two others, rented the greater part of the Woodhall shooting for three years. He has shot, at one time or another, in more than 50 parishes in the county. Tempora Mutantur. Probably hard times have had an astringent effect on the ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... a bowl of soup," Hsi Jen continued, "and of this he has had a few mouthfuls. He shouted and shouted that his mouth was parched and fancied a decoction of sour plums, but remembering that sour plums are astringent things, that he had been thrashed only a short time before, and that not having been allowed to groan, he must, of course, have been so hard pressed that fiery virus and heated blood must unavoidably have accumulated in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... the subject as to the apparatus and methods employed in early times. It seems fairly certain, however, that up to the 18th century these were of the most primitive kind. With regard to materials, we know that prior to the general introduction of the hop (see ALE) as a preservative and astringent, a number of other bitter and aromatic plants had been employed with this end in view. Thus J.L. Baker (The Brewing Industry) points out that the Cimbri used the Tamarix germanica, the Scandinavians the fruit of the sweet gale (Myrica gale), ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... are very much the same as those of coffee—theine (an aromatic oil), sugar and gum, and a form of tannic acid. Green tea is more astringent than the other varieties, partly because it contains more tannin, and partly because it is sophisticated to adapt it ...
— Breakfast Dainties • Thomas J. Murrey

... the mass of starch, which has a slight reddish tinge, is made into cylinders of about thirty pounds' weight, and neatly covered with sago leaves, and in this state is sold as raw sago. Boiled with water this forms a thick glutinous mass, with a rather astringent taste, and is eaten with salt, limes, and chilies. Sago-bread is made in large quantities, by baking it into cakes in a small clay oven containing six or eight slits side by side, each about three-quarters of an inch wide, and six or eight inches ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... lime water. A great variety of substances have been used for tanning, as the acorn-cup of the oriental bark; catechu and sumach have been also used; but the oak bark is most generally used, as furnishing a large quantity of astringent matter. It is not the business of the chemist to describe the different kinds of leather, but I may just mention, that the upper leather of shoes is called curried leather; the leather having been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various

... blue-stockings, old and young, pressed into the theatre of the Institution to cover him with applause. His greatest labors were his discovery of the decomposition of the fixed alkalies, and the re-establishment of the simple nature of chlorine; his other researches were the investigation of astringent vegetables in connection with the art of tanning; the analysis of rocks and minerals in connection with geology; the comprehensive subject of agricultural chemistry; and galvanism and electro-chemical science. He was also ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... fact there stands also the so-called astringent effect of the milieu upon the individuals who are incapable of rising out of their environment, of stepping out of it. In society that bacillus for which one has found the name "suggestion" appears certainly as a leveling element, and, accordingly, whether the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... Rejected Addresses, to which it forms an appropriate companion. The peculiarities of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Christopher North, Washington Irving, Scott, Moore, Brougham, Wilberforce, and other names of sufficient eminence to provoke a quiz, are hit off with capital success. The most astringent features are always relaxed in the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... information on this subject, the author has grown cotton under glass, and analyzed it at various stages of its life history. In the early stage of unripeness he has found an astringent substance in the fiber. This substance disappears as the plant ripens, and seems to closely resemble some forms of tannin. Doubtless the presence of this body in cotton put upon the market in an unripe condition may account for certain dark stains sometimes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... by the Somali mohur, which has a smooth skin, with knotty-looking warts upon it like a huge turnip, reddish inside, with a yellowish-green exterior. It has a highly aromatic flavour, and is a powerful astringent. When making mussacks, the Somali pull a sheep or goat out of his skin; tie its legs and tail, where incisions had been made, to make it a waterproof bag, and then fill it with bits of this bark, chopped up and mixed with water. They then suspend it in a tree to dry, and afterwards render ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... infusion should be made by adding boiling water to the leaves, and permitting them to steep for a few minutes only, for a concentrated decoction, made by boiling for a long time, liberates the astringent and bitter principles and drives off the agreeable aroma which resides ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce



Words linked to "Astringent" :   acerbic, medication, astringe, medicament, sour, astringent drug, astringency, alum



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