hemlock Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun poisonous drug derived from an Eurasian plant of the genus Conium
    • Socrates refused to flee and died by drinking hemlock
  2. noun large branching biennial herb native to Eurasia and Africa and adventive in North America having large fernlike leaves and white flowers; usually found in damp habitats; all parts extremely poisonous
    poison parsley; poison hemlock; Nebraska fern; Conium maculatum; California fern; winter fern.
  3. noun soft coarse splintery wood of a hemlock tree especially the western hemlock
  4. noun an evergreen tree
    hemlock tree.

WordNet

Hem"lock noun
Etymology
OE. hemeluc, humloc, AS. hemlic, hymlic.
Definitions
  1. (Bot.) The name of several poisonous umbelliferous herbs having finely cut leaves and small white flowers, as the Cicuta maculata, bulbifera, and virosa, and the Conium maculatum. See Conium. ✍ The potion of hemlock administered to Socrates is by some thought to have been a decoction of Cicuta virosa, or water hemlock, by others, of Conium maculatum.
  2. (Bot.) An evergreen tree common in North America (Abies, ∨ Tsuga, Canadensis); hemlock spruce.
    The murmuring pines and the hemlocks. Longfellow.
  3. The wood or timber of the hemlock tree.

Webster 1913