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''hemlock'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250825221219-00-⌔
hemlock - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
hemlock (countable and uncountable, plural hemlocks)
- Any of the poisonous umbelliferous plants, of the genera
- Conium, either Conium maculatum or Conium chaerophylloides.
- ✤ Have a tree or two the witches particularly like, such as the alder, larch, cypress and hemlock; then, to counteract any possible evil effects, there must be a holly, yew, hazel, elder, mountain ash or juniper.1
- ✤ In the Tyrol, on May Day, it was the custom to smoke out witches by burning bundles of black and red spotted hemlock. In the eighteenth century hemlock was used for treating cancer, syphilis, and ulcers.2
- ✤ There were bunches of wild garlic to keep out evil spirits, foxgloves for healing spells and hemlock and vervain for darker magic.3
- Cicuta (water hemlock).
- Poison obtained from these Conium and Cicuta plants. [from c. 1600]
- Any of several coniferous trees, of the genus Tsuga, that grow in North America; the wood of such trees. [from 1670]
- ✤ The wind blows and the hemlocks wave their feathery leading shoots. Such a graceful profile, so elegant a tree.4
Etymology
From Middle English hemlok, hemeluc, from Old English hemlīc, hymlīc m and hymlīce f (“hemlock, bryony, convolvulus”), of uncertain origin.
Pronunciation
Printed 2026-06-28.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Link to original Footnotes
1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 273: ↩
1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 113: ↩
1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 41: ↩
2018, Richard Powers, The Overstory, Vintage (2019), page 380: ↩
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