Bezoar Definition

bēzôr
noun
A concretion found in the stomach or intestines of some animals, esp. ruminants, and sometimes humans, formerly thought to be an antidote for poisons.
Webster's New World
A hard indigestible mass of material, such as hair, plant fibers, or seeds, found in the stomach or intestine of animals, especially ruminants and sometimes humans. Bezoars were formerly considered to be antidotes to poisons and to possess magic properties.
American Heritage Medicine

A mass, usually of hair or undigested vegetable matter, found in an animal's intestines; a hairball.

Wiktionary

An enterolith.

Wiktionary

Other Word Forms of Bezoar

Noun

Singular:
bezoar
Plural:
bezoars

Origin of Bezoar

  • Middle English bezear stone used as antidote to poison probably from Old French bezahar gastric or intestinal mass used as antidote to poison from Arabic bāzahr from Persian pādzahr pād- protector (from Avestan pātar- pā- in Indo-European roots) zahr poison (from Middle Persian gwhen- in Indo-European roots)

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • From Arabic بَازَهْر (bāzahr), from Middle Persian pʾtzhl (pādzahr, “bezoar, antidote”). In ancient times, bezoars from animals were ground up and ingested as remedies for various maladies and as antidotes to poisons.

    From Wiktionary

Bezoar Sentence Examples

  • These bodies had long been known as "fossil fir cones" and "bezoar stones."

  • The celebrated Gascoigne's powder, which was sold as late as the middle of the 19th century in the form of balls like sal prunella, consisted of equal parts of crabs' eyes," the black tips of crabs' claws, Oriental pearls, Oriental bezoar and white coral, and was administered in jelly made of hart's horn, but was prescribed by physicians chiefly for wealthy people, as it cost about forty shillings per ounce.

  • Oxidizing agents, such as arsenic acid, convert it into ellagic acid, C 14 H 8 0 9 +H 2 0, probably a fluorene derivative, a substance which occurs in gall-nuts, in the external membrane of the episperm of the walnut, and prob ably in many plants, and composes the "bezoar stones" found in the intestines of Persian wild goats.

Find Similar Words

Find similar words to bezoar using the buttons below.

Words Starting With

BBEBEZ

Words Ending With

RAROAR

Unscrambles

bezoar

Words Starting With B and Ending With R

Starts With B & Ends With RStarts With BE & Ends With RStarts With B & Ends With AR

Word Length

6 Letter Words6 Letter Words Starting With B6 Letter Words Ending With R