Word.ws English Dictionary

cantharides

UK/kænˈθæɹɪdiːz/

cantharides noun: spanish fly, Lytta vesicatoria (syn. Cantharis vesicatoria).

cantharides: spanish fly, Lytta vesicatoria (syn. Cantharis vesicatoria)
Image: Siga, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cantharides (uncountable)

  1. Spanish fly, Lytta vesicatoria (syn. Cantharis vesicatoria).
  2. Spanish fly; a vesicant extracted from the beetle, popularly held to have aphrodisiac properties.
    • I can make the most subtle sauces yield up their secret—whether it be white arsenic, rosalgar, mercury sublimate, or cantharides.1926, Hope Mirrlees, chapter 26, in Lud-in-the-Mist
    • Madame de Pompadour used tincture of cantharides to regain the love of Louis XV.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 56

Examples of cantharides in a sentence

  • Speaking her name, it was as if he spake pure cantharides. ‘Quick,’ she panted. ‘There is time before they are all about.1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like The Sun:
  • It’s lucky that Carol had taken the precaution of obtaining some cantharides; without them the evening might have been a dead loss.1992, Will Self, Cock and Bull:
  • Basically Louis's drug dealer and pimp, Richelieu, known for opium recipes to fit all occasions, is also credited with the introduction into France of the cantharides, or Spanish fly.2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 612:

Origin of cantharides

Late Middle English, from Latin cantharides, plural of cantharis.

Words formed from cantharides

Questions about cantharides

What does cantharides mean?
Cantharides means spanish fly, Lytta vesicatoria (syn. Cantharis vesicatoria).
How do you use cantharides in a sentence?
Speaking her name, it was as if he spake pure cantharides. ‘Quick,’ she panted. ‘There is time before they are all about.
What part of speech is cantharides?
Cantharides is a noun.
How do you pronounce cantharides?
Cantharides is pronounced /kænˈθæɹɪdiːz/ (UK).

Words near cantharides in the dictionary

  1. cantharidated
  2. cantharidates
  3. cantharidating
  4. cantharide
  5. cantharidean
  6. cantharides
  7. cantharidian
  8. cantharidiasis
  9. cantharidic
  10. cantharidin
  11. cantharidine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cantharides (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cantharides.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cantharides. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.