alectorian

English

Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek ἀλέκτωρ (aléktōr, “cock”).

Noun

alectorian (plural alectorians)

1. Alternative form of alectoria
   • 1808, Saint Thomas More, Thomas Frognall Dibdin, A Most Pleasant, Fruitful, and Witty Work of the Best State of a Public Weal, and of the New Isle Called Utopia:

     Stones of baser sort, and yet of singular vertue, are the Chalydonie, or Swallowstone, found in the mawes of young swallowes—against madnesse: and the Alectorian, or Cockes stone, of a waterie color, found in the maw of a cocke, or capon, after hee bee nine years olde—above all commended for giving strength and courage! and wherewith (as it is reported) the famous Milo-Critonien always stood invincible.

   • 1890 September 6, “In an Ethiop's Ear”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, volume 70, number 1819:

     Who would not carry about him the alectorian stone, which, held in the mouth, ensures the mastery of the event, appeases thirst, and quells the ardours of the heart?

   • 1926, Eric Rücker Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros, page 67:

     Against such a peril I had provided certain amulets made of the stone alectorian, which groweth in the gizzard of a cock hatched on a moonless night when Saturn burneth in a human sign and the lord of the third house is in the ascendant.

   • 1997, Marcel Béalu, The Experience of the Night, page 103:

     My patients could obtain from my shops, at their choice, aphrodisiac spectacles or ones that cure love; spectacles made of alectorian stone that cancel the harmful effect of poisons, others made of chrysoprase that have the gift of strengthening weakened wills; spectacles that procure a grandiose, thrilling idea of the world, or ones that reduce it to the dimensions of a reading room . . . ones that give a blue view of life or a rose-tinted view; spectacles that induce dreams or suppress them ... in a word, the most fantastic assortment of spectacles imaginable.

Etymology 2

Alectoria +‎ -an

Adjective

alectorian (comparative more alectorian, superlative most alectorian)

1. Alternative form of alectorioid
   • 1915, Journal of Microscopy - Volume 35, page 61:

     Howe has left R. thrausta in the genus Alectoria, where it was placed by Acharius; the filamentous cortex is Alectorian in character, and fruits are unknown.

   • 1960, Problems of Botany - Volume 5, page 79:

     The mountain tundras in western Verkhoyansk, are frequently fragmented; the alectorian tundras are usually continuous.

   • 1971, Nikolaĭ Andreevich Gvozdet︠s︡kiĭ, N. I. Mikhaĭlov, Physical Geography of the USSR (Asiatic Part), page 229:

     Sections of lichen (mostly alectorian) tundra are predominant in both subzones; moss-covered and hummocky-cotton grass tundras (in the Lena river delta) are confined to the excessively moist areas.

Anagrams

• creational, laceration, reactional