cinchona
UK /sɪŋˈkəʊnə/ · US /sɪŋˈkoʊnə/ noun
Forms cinchonas chinchona chincona
- noun A tree or shrub of the genus Cinchona, native to the Andes in South America but since widely cultivated in Indonesia and India as well for its medicinal bark.
- noun The bark of these plants, which yield quinine and other alkaloids useful in reducing fevers and particularly in combatting malaria.
- noun (medicine) Any medicine chiefly composed of the prepared bark of these plants.
Synonyms
quinquina cinchona bark Jesuit's bark Peruvian bark quinine bark chinchona
Etymology
From New Latin cinchona, from Spanish Chinchón. Named by Carl Linnaeus after Ana de Osorio, 4th Countess of Chinchón (1599–1625), the wife of the Spanish Viceroy of Peru, who was allegedly cured of a fever by the bark.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A genus of trees growing naturally on the Andes in Peru and adjacent countries, but now cultivated in the East Indies, producing a medicinal bark of great value.
- noun The bark of any species of cinchona containing three per cent.
Etymology [So named from the wife of Count Chinchon, viceroy of Peru in the seventeenth century, who by its use was freed from an intermittent fever, and after her return to Spain, contributed to the general propagation of this remedy.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “cinchona”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details