Definition of "ptomaine poisoning" []

• Food poisoning, erroneously believed to be the result of ptomaine ingestion. Not in scientific use. (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.

• "He had found his Complete and Concise Home Doctor (two massive volumes, cross-indexed, fifteen hundred pages, including everything from ptomaine poisoning to beauty tips on the care and shaping of the eyebrow) in the Port of London, and had even learned English in order to understand it."