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Upas   Listen
noun
Upas  n.  
1.
(Bot.) A tree (Antiaris toxicaria) of the Breadfruit family, common in the forests of Java and the neighboring islands. Its secretions are poisonous, and it has been fabulously reported that the atmosphere about it is deleterious. Called also bohun upas.
2.
A virulent poison used in Java and the adjacent islands for poisoning arrows. One kind, upas antiar, is derived from the upas tree (Antiaris toxicaria). Upas tieute is prepared from a climbing plant (Strychnos Tieute).






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Upas" Quotes from Famous Books



... daughter, who had been the source of so many incidents which had caused her pain, and Iras regretted that she had ever confided to her aunt her love for Dion. But, no matter what might happen, the upas-tree whence emanated all these tortures, anxieties, and vexations, must be rooted out—stricken from the ranks ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... blue heavens and salt sea and the music of the wind, naturally gloated over a land which produces sandal-wood, cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, benzoin, camphor, nutmeg, and a host of other gums and spices; a land whose shades are created by cocoa-nut palms, ebony, banana, bread-fruit, gutta-percha, upas, sesamum, and a vast variety of other trees and shrubs, the branches of which are laden with fruits, and flowers, and paroquets, ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne

... what I do, and you will not refuse me your friendly criticism,—and, perhaps, some slight meed of approbation,—because you are dwelling beneath the shade of a throne. Oh, Caroline, let it not be a upas tree!" ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... hand; the sun like a furnace seven times heated. Provisions had not come up in time at Beaver Dam Station and the troops marched upon half-rations. Gone were the mountains and the mountain air, present was the languorous breath of the low country. It had an upas quality, dulling the brain, retarding the step. The men were very tired, it was hot, and a low ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... the question of the drunkard, for the drink difficulty lies at the root of everything. Nine-tenths of our poverty, squalor, vice, and crime spring from this poisonous tap-root. Many of our social evils, which overshadow the land like so many upas trees, would dwindle away and die if they were not constantly watered with strong drink. There is universal agreement on that point; in fact, the agreement as to the evils of intemperance is almost as universal as the conviction that politicians will do nothing practical to interfere ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... murdered. I think that—and—I think, too—" His voice trailed off. He stood silent and preoccupied for a moment, and then, putting his thoughts into words, without addressing them to anybody: "Ayupee!" he said reflectively; "Pohon-Upas, Antjar, Galanga root, Ginger and Black Pepper—that's the Javanese method of procedure, ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... thought may wander to the thrilling fireside tale of how the despairing Dutch criminals used to rush, inclosed in leathern hoods, across the "Poison Valley," to gather the deadly drippings from the terrible Upas-tree. ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Botanic Garden," a poem by Dr. Darwin; chiefly remembered for Mr. Gladstone's favourite "Upas-tree," a plant which has not, and never had, any existence except in the fancy of some traveller, who hoaxed the too-scientific poet with the story, which, years afterwards, hoaxed the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... are remarkably unanimous in their choice of diction. In their novels there is usually a lady or gentleman who is more or less of a upas tree; the lover has a manly breast; minds are redolent of various things; hearts are hollow; events are utilized; friends are consigned to the tomb; infancy is an engaging period; the sun is a luminary that goes to his western couch, or gathers the rain-drops into his refulgent ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... individuals who, by the sole force of personal character, seem to render wise, better, more elevated, all with whom they come in contact. Others, again, stand in the midst of the society in which they are placed, a moral upas, poisoning the atmosphere around them, so that no virtue can come within their shadow and live. Family virtues descend with family estates, and hereditary vices are hardly compensated for by hereditary possessions. ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... newspapers, between the years 1836 and 1840, appeared glowing puffs of "the beautiful young female physician," as she was termed, accompanied by elaborate advertisements setting forth her specialty. No wonder this Upas tree flourished by the river of crime on whose banks it was fed. No wonder that her brother Joseph, who had been imported from madame's native English town, was kept busy in putting up medicines and compounds ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... Southern soldiers did this, but Edward Conway had not been one of them. For where whiskey sits he holds a scepter whose staff is the body of the Upas tree, and there is no room for the oak of thrift or the ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... to be obliged to say that all are not meta- physicians, or Christian Scientists, who call themselves so. Charlatanism, fraud, and malice are getting into the ranks of the good and pure, sending forth a poison [15] more deadly than the upas-tree in the eastern archi- pelago. This evil obtains in the present false teaching and false practice of the Science of treating disease through Mind. The silent address of a mental malpractitioner can only be portrayed in these words of the apostle, [20] ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... who selfishly draweth his sword from its sheath; Let his garland be twined by the furies, and the upas tree furnish the wreath; Let the blood he has shed steam around him, through the length of eternity's years, And the anguish-wrung screams of his victims for ever resound in his ears. For all that makes life worth possessing must yield ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... teaching of Scripture is conveyed by means of the term 'knowing' (vedana), which is synonymous with meditating (dhyana, upasana). That these terms are so synonymous appears from the fact that the verbs vid, upas, dhyai are in one and the same text used with reference to one and the same object of knowledge. A text begins, e. g. 'Let him meditate (upasita) on mind as Brahman,' and concludes 'he who knows (veda) this shines, warms,' &c. (Ch. Up. III, 18). In the same way the knowledge ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... stem. Few contrivances more umbrageous than the combination of its long, feathery foliations into its perfection of a parasol. But there are times in the dank, hot nights of midsummer, when the ailantus is but a diluted upas-antiar of Macassar, tainting, albeit with no deadly essence, the muggy air that rocks its slumbering branches and rolls away thence along the parapets and in at the windows of the sleepers. Dead-horse chestnut it might reasonably be called, because ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... series of the most thoroughgoing edicts. All feudal privileges, all interprovincial customs dues, were swept away; the Inquisition was abolished, and the number of convents was reduced to a third. These measures were in themselves most salutary, and struck at the very root of the upas-tree under the baneful shade of which Spain had been slowly perishing. But to do good they must be enforced; there must be a complete military conquest of the country, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... matter of fact, by thus emptying his mind of its serious and accustomed occupations, Mary made room for the very development she dreaded to flourish like an upas tree. For although he breathed no word of it, although he showed no sign of it, to Morris the memory of the dead was a constant companion. Time heals all things, that is the common saying; but would ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... cause which for near two hundred years has successfully struggled into birth, to youth, and maturity. Striking down in its onward course superstitions which hath grown with centuries, and where it does not exterminate them, it supplies a purer atmosphere, and extracts the upas-sting which has laid low so many, and which must yet be finally exterminated. The day is rapidly dawning when our only deities will be the works of genius, and our only prayer the remembrance of our most ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... no geographic line Can fix the boundary or the point define, Since each with each so closely interblends, Where Slavery rises, and where Freedom ends. Beneath your rocks the roots, far-reaching, hide Of the fell Upas on the Southern side; The tree whose branches in your northwinds wave Dropped its young blossoms on Mount Vernon's grave; The nursling growth of Monticello's crest Is now the glory of the free Northwest; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... not heard her spoken of before, as connected with the report of his intemperance, he knew very well that Mr. Query's "friendly investigations" had been the sole cause of his loss of practice. However, to go to the roots of this Upas tree of scandal, he resolved to pay an immediate visit to ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... Bantam. Caddy. Cassowary. Cockatoo. Dugong. Gamboge. Gong. Gutta-percha. Mandarin. Mango. Orang-outang. Rattan. Sago. Upas. ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... physiologists have insisted,[909] an affinity for special organic substances, whether natural or foreign to the body. We see this in the cells of the kidneys attracting urea from the blood; in the worrara poison affecting the nerves; upas and digitalis the muscles; the Lytta vesicatoria the kidneys; and in the poisonous matter of many diseases, as small-pox, scarlet-fever, hooping-cough, glanders, cancer, and hydrophobia, affecting certain definite parts of the body or certain ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... beside glad rivers that elude, With mocking lapse, thy tantalized pursuit, And hungering where gilded husks delude With bitter ashes as of Dead Sea fruit, Ashes of Hope, but seed of Discontent, That rears its upas growth from blighted root? Around, thou hear'st Creation eloquent, Hymning creative attributes, and seest The starry marvels of the firmament, And marvels of the nearer earth, released By impulse from within, not dimly shown, Nor plainlier in the greatest than the least: And, through ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... dykes, the paths, which saw me playing as a child, and watched other children running over that grassy plain of Plain Palais which bore my own childish steps—I had the sharpest sense of the emptiness of life and the flight of things. I felt the shadow of the upas tree darkening over me. I gazed into the great implacable abyss in which are swallowed up all those phantoms which call themselves living beings. I saw that the living are but apparitions hovering for a moment over the earth, made out of the ashes of the dead, and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward



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