Meaning & use
hemlock
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Meanings
nouncountable or uncountable
A very poisonous plant with feathery leaves, spotted stems and clusters of small white flowers.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: hemlock grew by the stream. It is dangerous to eat any part of it.
Patterns
- poison hemlock
- a dose of hemlock
Hemlock grows along damp ditches and looks a little like wild carrot.
Children were warned never to touch hemlock.
The farmer pulled the hemlock out of the pasture before the cattle could eat it.
noununcountable
The poison made from this plant, famously used in ancient Greece to carry out the death sentence of Socrates.
Grammar: Often used with drink or take: he drank the hemlock.
Patterns
- drink hemlock
Socrates was sentenced to drink hemlock.
In the old story, the villain slipped hemlock into the wine.
She read that hemlock slowly paralyzes the body.
nouncountable or uncountable
A tall evergreen tree of North America and Asia, with flat needles and small cones, unrelated to the poisonous plant.
Grammar: The tree is harmless, and context usually shows which sense is meant.
Patterns
- eastern hemlock
A thick hemlock forest shaded the trail.
The hemlock is the state tree of Pennsylvania.
Loggers once harvested hemlock for its bark and its wood.
Word forms
| plural | hemlocks |
|---|
Common combinations
- poison hemlock
- Poison hemlock grows along roadsides in spring.
- drink hemlock
- The philosopher chose to drink hemlock.
- eastern hemlock
- The eastern hemlock has soft green needles.
- hemlock forest
- We hiked through a quiet hemlock forest.
- a cup of hemlock
- The play ends with a cup of hemlock.
Synonyms and how they differ
- poison
- This is the general word for any harmful substance, whereas hemlock names a particular plant poison.
- toxin
- This is a scientific word for a harmful substance made by a living thing, and does not name a plant.
- conifer
- This is the broad group of cone-bearing trees, of which the hemlock tree is only one kind.
Opposites
Word family
- water hemlock noun
- a deadly poisonous plant of damp places
- poison hemlock noun
- the toxic plant with spotted stems
- hemlock tree noun
- the harmless evergreen
Commonly confused: hemlock or hellebore?
hemlock vs hellebore
Hellebore is a different poisonous plant with showy flowers, and the two are sometimes mixed up in old stories about poisons.
Practice
Which sentence uses hemlock in its poisonous-plant sense?
Choose one answer.
Drinking hemlock is the poison, as in the case of Socrates. The other sentences refer to the harmless evergreen tree.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hemlock”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.