wrasse

[ad. Cornish wrach, mutated form of gwrach = Welsh gwrach wrasse, also old woman. Mod. Cornish dial. has also the form wrath.

One or other species belonging to the acanthopterygian family Labridae or esp. the genus Labrus of bony, thick-lipped, marine fishes; esp. the ballan (the 'old wife', Labrus maculatus) or the striped, red, or cook species (L. mixtus), found on the British coasts.

bass

A phonetic corruption of BARSE, OE. baers,[Du. baars, MHG. bars, Ger. barsch, OHG. burst, Sc. birse 'bristle.']

1. The Common Perch (Perca fluviatilis), or an allied freshwater species.
2. A voracious marine fish (Labrax lupus) of the Perch family, common in European seas; called also Sea-wolf and Sea-Dace. Also an allied species (Sea-bass) caught on the coasts of North America.

sassafras

[a. Sp. sasafras (whence Pg. sassafraz, salsafraz, F., G. and mod.L. sassafras. It is doubtful whether the Sp. word is a transferred application (which, indeed, would be difficult to account for) of a Sp. representation of L. saxifraga SAXIFRAGE, or whether it was adopted from some American language; in the latter case the American word seems to have influenced the form of the Sp. name for saxifrage, which according to the native lexicographers has the forms saxifraga, -fragia, -fragua, salsifragia, salsifrex, saxafrax. The Spanish writer Monardes (1571) regards the Sp. name as adopted from Fr., which seems unlikely; he gives the native Indian name as pauame.]

1. a. A small tree, Sassafras officinale (N.O. Laurinae), also called Sassafras Laurel and Ague-tree, with green apetalous flowers and dimorphous leaves, native in North America, where it is said to have been discovered by the Spaniards in 1528.
2. The dried bark of this tree, used medicinally as an alterative; also an infusion of this.
3. Sassafras tea, an infusion of sassafras formerly used in making SALOOP.

saloop

A hot drink consisting of an infusion of powdered SALEP or (later) of sassafras, with milk and sugar, formerly sold in the streets of London in the night and early morning.

salep

[= F. salep, Sp. salép, Pg. salepo, a. Turkish salep, a. Arabic thaleb (pronounced in some parts saleb), taken to be a shortening of khasyu 'th-thalab orchis (lit. 'fox's testicles'; cf. the Eng. name 'DOGSTONES'.)]

A nutritive meal, starch, or jelly made from the dried tubers of various orchidaceous plants, chiefly those of the genus Orchis; formerly also used as a drug.

dogstones

[transl. med.L. Testiculus canis (Turner, Lyte); from the shape of the tubers.]

 As I watched them in that light, the syllables of the sacred mantra of Tibet, the mantra of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisatva of Compassion, seemed to become alive, as if the rock itself had written them, as if that great mountain silence of purple and brown rock, of stream and scrub and long wastes of shining sand had formed them slowly over millenia and was now speaking them from the rock, and would go on speaking them steadily without interruption, as long as the rock lasted. The whole landcape, or so it now seemed, was speaking that mantra; the small fast yellow stream was speaking it, and the wind, and the flurries of dust the wind raised from the grass, and the yellow flowers scattered in the grass, and the three hawks circling silently above the rock, and the bus also was speaking it in its wheezing over that winding road. Everything in that world was linked by the sound of the mantra; everything in that world was created from the sound of the mantra. Suddenly, even the long line of mountains ringing us seemed as transparent as breath.