Definition of "pellitory" []

• A small Mediterranean plant (Anacyclus pyrethrum) containing a volatile oil once used for the relief of toothache and facial neuralgia. (noun)
• Any of various monoecious plants of the genus Parietaria, having long narrow leaves with hairy tufts at the base and apetalous flowers. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "‘Needs must thou bring me a cooking-pot full of virgin vinegar and a pound of the herb pellitory called wound-wort.’"
• "Tufts of weeds outline the paving-stones; the walls are scored by enormous cracks, and the blackened coping is laced with a thousand festoons of pellitory."
• "This bas-relief was surmounted by a projecting plinth, upon which a variety of chance growths had sprung up, — yellow pellitory, bindweed, convolvuli, nettles, plantain, and even a little cherry-tree, already grown to some height."