Mustard

About

n. A plant of the genus Brassica, formerly classed as Sinapis. The ordinary species are B. nigra, the black mustard; B. alba, the white mustard; and B. Sinapistrum, the wild mustard or charlock. The black and white mustards are largely cultivated in Europe and America for their seed (see def. 2). B. juncea, the Indian mustard, is used for the same purposes. The seed of the charlock is inferior, but yields a good burning-oil. All the species mentioned yield oils fit for lamps or for use as food, and, in Asia especially, the Indian and various other sorts are raised in large quantities for the sake of this product. The leaves of various mustards form excellent antiscorbutic salads. (SeeBrassica and charlock.) The “tree” which grew from “a grain of mustard seed,” mentioned in Luke xiii. 19, was probably the true mustard, Brassica nigra, which attains in Palestine a height of 10 or even 15 feet; aocording to Royle and others, the tree meant is Salvadora Persica, a small tree bearing minute berries with pungent seeds, which bear the same name in Arabic as mustard.

n. The seed of mustard crushed and sifted (and often adulterated), used in the form of paste as a condiment. or, in the form of poultice (sinapism), plaster, or prepared paper (mustard-paper), as a rubefacient.

n. One of numerous mustard-like plants, almost all cruciferous: used with a qualifying word. See names below

n. Clypeola Jonthlaspi.

n. Sometimes, erroneously, the pennycress.

--Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia