Picrotoxin
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A poisonous material, extracted from the seeds of plants of species Anamirta cocculus, used as a stimulant; it is a complex of two alkaloids: picrotoxinin and picrotin.
"In a Sydney inquest on a man who died of an overdose of picrotoxin, a seldom-used drug, while undergoing treatment for a brain ailment in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the public learned that, if a medical practitioner makes a risky experiment on a patient and kills him, the practitioner is not criminally liable."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"In a Sydney inquest on a man who died of an overdose of picrotoxin, a seldom-used drug, while undergoing treatment for a brain ailment in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the public learned that, if a medical practitioner makes a risky experiment on a patient and kills him, the practitioner is not criminally liable."
Etymology
From picro- + toxin.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.