quassia : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: quassia	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for quassia
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
quassia n a bitter compound used as an insecticide and tonic and vermifuge; extracted from the wood and bark of trees of the genera Quassia and Picrasma handsome South American shrub or small tree having bright scarlet flowers and yielding a valuable fine-grained yellowish wood; yields the bitter drug quassia from its wood and bark Synonym(s): quassia, bitterwood, Quassia amara
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Quassia \Quas"sia\, n. [NL. From the name of a negro, Quassy, or Quash, who prescribed this article as a specific.] The wood of several tropical American trees of the order {Simarube[91]}, as {Quassia* amara}, {Picr[91]na excelsa}, and {Simaruba amara}. It is intensely bitter, and is used in medicine and sometimes as a substitute for hops in making beer.