upas tree

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a tall tropical Asian tree (Antiaris toxicaria) whose poisonous latex has been used to prepare arrow poison

   The botanist collected a latex sample from the upas tree without touching the sap.

2. 2
   noun

   literary: a person, institution, or influence regarded as poisoning or destroying everything around it

   The reformer described corruption as an upas tree spreading harm through the state.

From Indonesian Malay pohon upas, 'poison tree.' Exaggerated European accounts claimed that the Javanese tree killed all life near it; nineteenth-century writers therefore made the upas tree a metaphor for a corrupting presence. The real Antiaris toxicaria yields toxic latex but does not poison its surroundings.

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