Some 16th-century Italian clergymen tried to ban coffee because they believed it to be āsatanic.ā However, Pope Clement VII loved coffee so much that he lifted the ban and had coffee baptized in 1600.
VAMPIRES
Noun
vampires
plural of vampire
Verb
vampires
Third-person singular simple present indicative form of vampire
Source: Wiktionary
VAMPIRE
Vam"pire, n. Etym: [F. vampire (cf. It. vampiro, G. & D. vampir), fr. Servian vampir.] [Written also vampyre.]
1. A blood-sucking ghost; a soul of a dead person superstitiously believed to come from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep, thus causing their death. This superstition is now prevalent in parts of Eastern Europe, and was especially current in Hungary about the year 1730. The persons who turn vampires are generally wizards, witches, suicides, and persons who have come to a violent end, or have been cursed by their parents or by the church, Encyc. Brit.
2. Fig.: One who lives by preying on others; an extortioner; a bloodsucker.
3. (Zoƶl.)
Definition: Either one of two or more species of South American blood- sucking bats belonging to the genera Desmodus and Diphylla. These bats are destitute of molar teeth, but have strong, sharp cutting incisors with which they make punctured wounds from which they suck the blood of horses, cattle, and other animals, as well as man, chiefly during sleep. They have a cƦcal appendage to the stomach, in which the blood with which they gorge themselves is stored.
4. (Zoƶl.)
Definition: Any one of several species of harmless tropical American bats of the genus Vampyrus, especially V. spectrum. These bats feed upon insects and fruit, but were formerly erroneously supposed to suck the blood of man and animals. Called also false vampire. Vampire bat (Zoƶl.), a vampire, 3.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
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25 November 2024
ONCHOCERCIASIS
(noun) infestation with slender threadlike roundworms (filaria) deposited under the skin by the bite of black fleas; when the eyes are involved it can result in blindness; common in Africa and tropical America
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