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حَنْظَلٌ حنظل [The colocynth; cucumis colocynthis;] a certain bitter plant; (Msb;) [and its fruit;] well known; (K;) i. q. شَرْىٌ: (S:) n. un. with ة: (S, Msb, K: *) [accord. to Freytag (who refers to Avic. p. 175, and Sprengel. hist. rei herb. vol. i. p. 269,) applied also to the momordica elaterium, or cucumis prophetarum:] there is a male species, and a female; the former fibrous; the latter soft, or easily broken, white, and easy to swallow: (TA:) the choice sort of it is the yellow; (K;) or, accord. to the “ Kánoon ” of the Ra-ees [Ibn-Seenà, from which the description of its properties and uses, in the K and TA, is, with some slight variations, taken], the white, very white, and soft; for the black and the hard are bad, and it is not plucked until it becomes yellow, and the greenness has completely gone from it; (TA:) its pulp attenuates the thick phlegmatic humour that flows upon the joints (K, TA) and tendons, (TA,) when swallowed (K, TA) in the dose of of twelve keeráts, (TA,) or used in the manner of a cluster: it is beneficial for melancholy, and epilepsy, and the [sort of doting termed] وَسْوَاس, and alopecia (دَآء الثَّعْلَب), and elephantiasis (الجُذَام), (K, TA,) and [the disease of the tumid leg, termed] دَآء الفِيل; for these three used by rubbing; and for the cold نِقْرِس [i. e. arthritis, or gout], (TA,) and for the bite of vipers, and the sting of scorpions, especially its root; (K, TA;) for this last being the most beneficial of medicines; a drachm of its root, administered to an Arab stung by a scorpion in four places, being said to have cured him on the spot: that which is plucked green relaxes [the bowels] excessively, and produces excessive vomiting: so in the “ Kánoon: ” (TA:) it is also beneficial for the tooth-ache, by fumigating with its seeds; and for killing fleas, by sprinkling what is cooked thereof; and for the sciatica, by rubbing with what is green thereof: (K, TA:) its root is cooked with vinegar, and one rinses the mouth with it for the tooth-ache; and the vinegar is cooked in it in hot ashes: when cooked in olive-oil, that oil, being dropped [into the ear-hole], is beneficial for ringing in the ears: it is beneficial also for the moist and flatulent colic: and sometimes it attenuates the blood: administered as a suppository in the vagina, it kills the fœtus: (TA:) when the plant bears a single fruit, this is very deadly. (K, TA.) [See also هَبِيدٌ.] Accord. to [many of] the leading authorities among the Arabs, (TA,) the ن in this word is augmentative; (Msb, TA;) because of their saying, حَظِلَ البَعِيرُ, meaning “ the camel became sick from eating حَنْظَل; ” and J and Sgh [and Fei and others] have mentioned it in art. حظل: but ISd says that this is not an evidence of its being radically triliteral; and that حَظِلَ is like ضَغْبَةٌ (as an epithet applied to a woman) from الضَّغَابِيسُ, which must be acknowledged to be radically quadriliteral. (TA.)
An Arabic-English Lexicon. London. Williams and Norgate. 1863.

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