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poultice

US/ˈpoʊltɪs/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,034 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: poultices

A poultice is a soft moist dressing put on a sore place. Apply a poultice, a bread poultice, a warm poultice.

It is old-fashioned domestic medicine, usually warm and often made of bread or bran, and it works chiefly by holding heat and moisture against the skin. It is still used in veterinary practice, especially on horses' feet.

Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer · Public domain

Definitions of poultice

  1. 1nounpoulticeA soft moist dressing put on a sore place.C2

    “Her grandmother put a warm bread poultice on the boil to draw out the infection.”

poultice is a dressing.

Where it comes from

Latin pultes is the plural of puls, a thick porridge. Poultry is unrelated despite the similar shape.

  1. Latin

    pultes

  2. Middle English

    pultes

  3. English, today

    poultice

From Middle English pultes, from Latin pultes, plural of puls. The phonological development from Middle English is regular; compare poultry.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

poultice in the wild

  • The cloth is used to keep the preparation in place, or additional bandaging to hold the poultice may be employed.

    Poultice

  • The term "poultice" may also refer to a porous solid, filled with a solvent, and used to remove stains from porous stone such as marble or granite.

    Poultice

  • If it has formed an abscess, one first applies a soft poultice. In pre-modern medicine, this was thought to be caused by a sanguine and bilious humour.

    Anticor

  • A mustard plaster, also known as a blister, is a poultice of mustard seed powder spread inside a protective dressing and applied to the body to stimulate healing.

    Mustard plaster

  • The large tuberous roots can be roasted and eaten, or can be used to make a poultice or infusion.

    Ipomoea pandurata

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.