bezoar

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a compact mass of swallowed hair, plant fibre, or other indigestible material formed in a human or animal digestive tract

   The scan revealed a bezoar blocking part of the patient's stomach.

2. 2
   noun

   historical: such a concretion used as a supposed antidote to poison or as a protective charm

   The prince kept a polished bezoar because court physicians believed it could detect poison.

Borrowed through French, Spanish, and Arabic from Middle Persian padzahr, literally 'counter-poison.' Bezoars taken from animals were prized in medieval and early modern medicine as antidotes, giving the digestive concretion its name.

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