Definition of "quassia" []

• A tropical American shrub or small tree (Quassia amara) having bright scarlet flowers and yielding a valuable, lustrous, fine-grained, yellowish-white wood. (noun)
• The wood of this plant. (noun)
• A bitter substance obtained from the wood of this plant, used in medicine and as an insecticide. (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.

• "A slightly splenetic man, possessed of Scott’s sense, would have swept his premises clear of them: Let no blue bottle approach here, to disturb a man in his work, —under pain of sugared squash (called quassia) and king’s yellow!"
• "By the simple process of spraying the plant three or four times a day, until it is out of the seed-leaf, and the danger is over, it is possible in the garden to wash out the = Haltica =; and any kind of insecticide or flavouring, such as quassia, may be mingled with the water to render the plants distasteful to the insects."
• "One third of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt."