cantharides en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /kænˈθæɹɪdiːz/ (UK)
Etymology
Late Middle English, from Latin cantharides, plural of cantharis.
Meanings
- (uncountable) Spanish fly, Lytta vesicatoria (syn. Cantharis vesicatoria).
-
(uncountable) Spanish fly; a vesicant extracted from the beetle, popularly held to have aphrodisiac properties.
Basically Louis's drug dealer and pimp, Richelieu, known for opium recipes to fit all occasions, is also credited with the introduction into France of the cantharides, or Spanish fly.
2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 612:It’s lucky that Carol had taken the precaution of obtaining some cantharides; without them the evening might have been a dead loss.
1992, Will Self, Cock and Bull:Speaking her name, it was as if he spake pure cantharides. ‘Quick,’ she panted. ‘There is time before they are all about. Again.’
1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like The Sun:Madame de Pompadour used tincture of cantharides to regain the love of Louis XV.
1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 56:I can make the most subtle sauces yield up their secret—whether it be white arsenic, rosalgar, mercury sublimate, or cantharides.
1926, Hope Mirrlees, chapter 26, in Lud-in-the-Mist: