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An alkaloid obtained, as a bitter, yellow substance, from the root of the barberry, gold thread, and other plants.

Bitterness of feeling; choler; anger; ill humor; as, to stir one's bile. Prescott.

The bell, or boom, of the bittern The bittern's hollow bill was heard. Wordsworth.

The bittern. Dryden.

in; unceremonious; wanting the forms of civility; rough in manners or speech. "Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior." "A plain, blunt man." Shak.

n. -- Bog bumper (bump, to make a loud noise), Bog blitter, Bog bluiter, Bog jumper, the bittern. [Prov.] -- Bog butter, a hydrocarbon of butterlike consistence found in the peat bogs of Ireland. -- Bog earth (Min.), a soil composed for the most part of silex and partially decomposed vegetable fiber. P. Cyc. -- Bog…

To cry with a hollow note; to make a hollow sound, as the bittern, and some insects. At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone. Tennyson.

ing with heavy roar; as, the booming of the sea; a deep, hollow sound; as, the booming of bitterns. Howitt.

A bitter principle obtained from the root of the bryony (Bryonia alba and B. dioica). It is a white, or slightly colored, substance, and is emetic and cathartic.

grows in moist and boggy places, having racems of white or reddish flowers and intensely bitter leaves, sometimes used in medicine; marsh trefoil; -- called also bog bean.

Firm; sturdy. And for the good old cause stood buff, 'Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff. Hudibras.

The bittern. [Local, Eng.]

To make a loud, heavy, or hollow noise, as the bittern; to boom. As a bittern bumps within a reed. Dryden.

The European bittern. Johnson.

A white, bitter, crystallizable substance, obtained from coffee. It is identical with the alkaloid theine from tea leaves, and with guaranine from guarana.

alumba, and probably Cocculus palmatus), indigenous in Mozambique. It has an unpleasantly bitter taste, and is used as a tonic and antiseptic. [Written also colombo, columbo, and calombo.] American calumba, the Frasera Carolinensis, also called American gentian. Its root has been used in medicine as bitter tonic in pla…

A bitter principle extracted as a white crystalline substance from the calumba root. [Written also colombin, and columbin]

le, A. nobilis, is used as a popular remedy. Its flowers have a strong and fragrant and a bitter, aromatic taste. They are tonic, febrifugal, and in large doses emetic, and the volatile oil is carminative.

The active principe of the cantharis, or Spanish fly, a volatile, acrid, bitter solid, crystallizing in four-sided prisms.

A genus of cruciferous plants, containing the lady's-smock, cuckooflower, bitter cress, meadow cress, etc.