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The light spongy pulp of the fruit of the bitter cucumber (Citrullus, or Cucumis, colocynthis), an Asiatic plant allied to the watermelon; coloquintida. It comes in white balls, is intensely bitter, and a powerful cathartic. Called also bitter apple, bitter cucumber, bitter gourd.

The active medicinal principle of colocynth; a bitter, yellow, crystalline substance, regarded as a glucoside.

ter with hard bondage. Ex. i. 14. Bitter apple, Bitter cucumber, Bitter gourd. (Bot.) See Colocynth. -- Bitter cress (Bot.), a plant of the genus Cardamine, esp. C. amara. -- Bitter earth (Min.), tale earth; calcined magnesia. -- Bitter principles (Chem.), a class of substances, extracted from vegetable products, ha…

See Colocynth. Shak.

uits of several other genera. See below. Bitter cucumber (Bot.), the Citrullus or Cucumis Colocynthis. SeeColocynth. -- Cucumber beetle. (Zoöl.) (a) A small, black flea-beetle (Crepidodera cucumeris), which destroys the leaves of cucumber, squash, and melon vines. (b) The squash beetle. -- Cucumber tree.(a) A large o…

ade from the shell of a gourd; hence, a drinking vessel; a bottle. Chaucer. Bitter gourd, colocynth.