DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 oil of wintergreen 名詞
 冬青油,水楊酸甲酯

 Win·ter·green n. Bot. A plant which keeps its leaves green through the winter.
 Note: ☞ In England, the name wintergreen is applied to the species of Pyrola which in America are called English wintergreen, and shin leaf  (see Shin leaf, under Shin.)  In America, the name wintergreen is given to Gaultheria procumbens, a low evergreen aromatic plant with oval leaves clustered at the top of a short stem, and bearing small white flowers followed by red berries; -- called also checkerberry, and sometimes, though improperly, partridge berry.
 Chickweed wintergreen, a low perennial primulaceous herb (Trientalis Americana); -- also called star flower.
 Flowering wintergreen, a low plant (Polygala paucifolia) with leaves somewhat like those of the wintergreen (Gaultheria), and bearing a few showy, rose-purple blossoms.
 oil of wintergreen, An aromatic oil, consisting almost entirely of methyl salicylate (CH3CO.O.C6H4.OH), obtained by distillation of an extract of the wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens); it can also be obtained from some other plants.  It is used as a flavoring agent for tooth powders and pastes, sometimes combined with menthol or eucalyptus.  It is called also oil of teaberry, oil of partridgeberry, and oil of gaultheria.
 Spotted wintergreen, a low evergreen plant (Chimaphila maculata) with ovate, white-spotted leaves.
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 Es·sen·tial a.
 1. Belonging to the essence, or that which makes an object, or class of objects, what it is.
    Majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was forever in it an essential character of plaintiveness.   --Hawthorne.
 2. Hence, really existing; existent.
 Is it true, that thou art but a name,
 And no essential thing?   --Webster (1623).
 3. Important in the highest degree; indispensable to the attainment of an object; indispensably necessary.
 Judgment's more essential to a general
 Than courage.   --Denham.
    How to live? -- that is the essential question for us.   --H. Spencer.
 4. Containing the essence or characteristic portion of a substance, as of a plant; highly rectified; pure; hence, unmixed; as, an essential oil. “Mine own essential horror.”
 5. Mus. Necessary; indispensable; -- said of those tones which constitute a chord, in distinction from ornamental or passing tones.
 6. Med. Idiopathic; independent of other diseases.
 Essential character Biol., the prominent characteristics which serve to distinguish one genus, species, etc., from another.
 Essential disease, Essential fever Med., one that is not dependent on another.
 Essential oils Chem., a class of volatile oils, extracted from plants, fruits, or flowers, having each its characteristic odor, and hot burning taste. They are used in essences, perfumery, etc., and include many varieties of compounds; as lemon oil is a terpene, oil of bitter almonds an aldehyde, oil of wintergreen an ethereal salt, etc.; -- called also volatile oils in distinction from the fixed or nonvolatile.

 oil of wintergreen
      n : oil or flavoring obtained from the creeping wintergreen or
          teaberry plant [syn: wintergreen oil]