cantharis
/kænˈθæɹɪs/
cantharis is the singular of cantharides.
Meaning of cantharides
Noun
cantharides (uncountable)
- Spanish fly, Lytta vesicatoria (syn. Cantharis vesicatoria).
- 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
Forms of cantharis
| plural | cantharides |
|---|
Origin of cantharis
From Latin cantharis, from Ancient Greek κανθαρίς (kantharís).
Questions about cantharis
- What is cantharis the singular of?
- Cantharis is the singular of cantharides.
- How do you pronounce cantharis?
- Cantharis is pronounced /kænˈθæɹɪs/.
Words near cantharis in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cantharis (page history and authors); 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: “cantharis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cantharis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.