Word Meaning

Meaning of nepenthes

- A drug used by the ancients to give relief from pain and sorrow; -- by some supposed to have been opium or hasheesh. Hence, anything soothing and comforting.
- Same as Nepenthe.
- A genus of climbing plants found in India, Malaya, etc., which have the leaves prolonged into a kind of stout tendril terminating in a pitcherlike appendage, whence the plants are often called pitcher plants and monkey-cups. There are about thirty species, of which the best known is Nepenthes distillatoria. See Pitcher plant.