MILK THISTLE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Milk thistle

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/mɪlk θˈɪsəl/ Listen

Milk thistle

noun

Any of several Old World coarse prickly-leaved shrubs and subshrubs having milky juice and yellow flowers; widely naturalized; often noxious weeds in cultivated soil. Synonym: sow thistle.

Tall Old World biennial thistle with large clasping white-blotched leaves and purple flower heads; naturalized in California and South America. Synonyms: blessed thistle, holy thistle, lady's thistle, Our Lady's mild thistle, Silybum marianum.

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"Milk thistle" Quotes from Famous Books

... Everyone notices it because of its odd milky splashes, and it every now and then enjoys a brief popularity again. Our superstitious forefathers believed that a drop of the Virgin Mary's milk fell on its leaves, which ever after bore milk-white markings because of it. The old names for it were Milk Thistle and Holy Thistle. The peasantry used to eat its tops as greens, and cook the roots in stews. Like all thistles this will become a weed if not kept down with ...

— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various

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... plate, covered with paper perforated with small holes, through which the bees will suck the honey without difficulty.—These valuable insects are liable to various disorders, both from the food they eat, from foreign enemies, and from one another. If they have fed greedily on the blossoms of the milk thistle or the elm, it will render them incapable of working, and the hive will be stained with filth. The best cure in this case is pounded pomegranate seed, moistened with sweet wine; or raisins mixed with wine ...

— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

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