absinthium

From Middle English absinthium, from Latin absinthium, from Ancient Greek ἀψίνθιον (apsínthion). Doublet of absinthe.

• (US) IPA^(key): /æbˈsɪn.θi.m̩/

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absinthium (uncountable)

1. (now rare) Common wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), an intensely bitter herb used in the production of absinthe and vermouth, and as a tonic. [First attested around 1150 to 1350.]^[1]
2. The dried leaves and flowering tops of the wormwood plant.^[2]
3. absinthe oil

• bismuthian

• apsinthium, absynthium

From Ancient Greek ἀψίνθιον (apsínthion, “wormwood”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [apˈsɪn.tʰi.ũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [abˈsin̪.t̪i.um]

absinthium n (genitive absinthiī or absinthī); second declension

1. wormwood
   • Apicius Caelius, De Re Coquinaria 1.3:

     Conditi Camerini praeceptis, utique pro absinthio cessante; in cuius vicem absinthi Pontici purgati terendique unciam, Thebaicam dabis, masticis, folii scripulos III, vini eius modi sextarios XVIII. Carbones amaritudo non exigit.

     • 2009 translation by Joseph Dommers Vehling

       Roman vermouth [or Absinth] is made thus: according to the recipe of Camerinum you need wormwood from Santo for Roman vermouth or, as a substitute, wormwood from the Pontus cleaned and curshed, 1 Theban ounce of it, 6 scuples of masitch, 3 each of [nard] leaves, costmary and saffron and 18 quarts of any kind of mild wine. [Filter cold] charcoal is required because of the bitterness.

2. an infusion of wormwood sometimes masked with honey due to its bitter taste
3. (figuratively) something which is bitter but wholesome
   • c. 35 CE – 100 CE, Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 3.1.5:

     Sed nos veremur ne parum hic liber mellis et absinthii multum habere videatur

     But I fear that this book will have too little sweetness and too much wormwood.

Second-declension noun (neuter).

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Borrowings

• “absinthium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "absinthium", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “absinthium”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers