Word.ws English Dictionary

hippomanes

hippomanes noun: an ancient love philter obtained from a mare or foal in heat.

Noun

hippomanes (uncountable)

  1. An ancient love philter obtained from a mare or foal in heat.
    • Let Circe and Medea bring the lees / Of some foul cup! Let Thessaly prepare / Its direst poison! Bring hippomanes, / Fierce philtre from the frantic, brooding mare!1908, Theodore Chickering Williams, transl., “On His Lady's Avarice”, in The Elegies of Tibullus, translation of original by Tibullus
  2. A membrane on the forehead of a foal, used in love potions.
    • Hippomanes was used in ancient Roman potions as an aphrodisiac.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 120

Origin of hippomanes

From Latin hippomanes, from Ancient Greek ἱππομᾰνής (hippomănḗs); see hippo- and the related suffix -mania.

Questions about hippomanes

What does hippomanes mean?
Hippomanes means an ancient love philter obtained from a mare or foal in heat.
What part of speech is hippomanes?
Hippomanes is a noun.

Words near hippomanes in the dictionary

  1. Hippolytan
  2. Hippolyte
  3. hippolytid
  4. hippolytids
  5. hippomancy
  6. hippomanes
  7. hippomania
  8. hippomelanin
  9. Hippomenes
  10. hippometer
  11. hippometers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hippomanes (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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