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quassia |
2 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Quassia \Quas"si*a\, 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[ae]}, as {Quassia amara}, {Picr[ae]na excelsa}, and {Simaruba amara}. It is intensely bitter, and is used in medicine and sometimes as a substitute for hops in making beer. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: quassia n 1: a bitter compound used as an insecticide and tonic and vermifuge; extracted from the wood an bark of trees of the genera Quassia and Picrasma 2: 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 [syn: {bitterwood}, {Quassia amara}]
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