hemlock
/ˈhɛmˌlɒk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.86 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of several coniferous trees, of the genus Tsuga, that grow in North America; the wood of such trees.
Countable; Uncountable
name
A number of places in the United States:
name
A number of places in the United States:
name
A number of places in the United States:
name
A number of places in the United States:
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "There were bunches of wild garlic to keep out evil spirits, foxgloves for healing spells and hemlock and vervain for darker magic."
- "The wind blows and the hemlocks wave their feathery leading shoots. Such a graceful profile, so elegant a tree."
Etymology
From Middle English hemlok, hemeluc, from Old English hemlīc, hymlīc m and hymlīce f (“hemlock, bryony, convolvulus”), of uncertain origin. speculative etymology Compare Old English hymele (“hop-vine, hops”), Old English humele (“bryony, widerton, hair moss, gold-hair, morning glory”), Danish and Swedish humle (“hops”), Icelandic humall (“hops”). Perhaps from Scythian, from Proto-Iranian *háwHmah (“ephedra; juice”), from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sáwHmas from Proto-Indo-European *sewh₁- (“to press out, extract”). ;cognates * (from Sarmato-Scythian *haumala) Ossetian хумӕллӕг (xumællæg, “hops”) * (from Sarmato-Scythian *hauma) Avestan 𐬵𐬀𐬊𐬨𐬀 (haoma), Baluchi [script needed] (hum), Persian هوم (hôm)) * (from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma) Sanskrit सोम (soma)) More at suck.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: hemlok, hemlīc, *háwHmah, *sáwHmas, *sewh₁-
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Canadian hemlock
Carolina hemlock
Chinese hemlock
eastern hemlock
Forrest's hemlock
gosh all hemlock
ground hemlock
hemlock leather
Synonyms
Stabler
Skamania County
Washington
devil's bread
devil's porridge
herb bennet
poison hemlock
poison parsley
Conium maculatum
Conium chaerophylloides
beaver poison
cowbane