hemlock

From Middle English hemlok, hemeluc, from Old English hemlīc, hymlīc m and hymlīce f (“hemlock, bryony, convolvulus”), of uncertain origin.

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɛmˌlɒk/

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hemlock (countable and uncountable, plural hemlocks)

1. Any of the poisonous umbelliferous plants, of the genera
   1. Conium, either Conium maculatum or Conium chaerophylloides.
      • 1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 41:

        There were bunches of wild garlic to keep out evil spirits, foxgloves for healing spells and hemlock and vervain for darker magic.

   2. Cicuta, water hemlock plant.
2. The poison obtained from these Conium and Cicuta plants. [from c. 1600]
3. Any of several coniferous trees, of the genus Tsuga, that grow in North America; the wood of such trees. [from 1670]
   • 2018, Richard Powers, The Overstory, Vintage (2019), page 380:

     The wind blows and the hemlocks wave their feathery leading shoots. Such a graceful profile, so elegant a tree.

• (Conium):, devil's bread, devil's porridge, herb bennet, poison hemlock, poison parsley, Conium maculatum, Conium chaerophylloides
• (Cicuta): beaver poison, cowbane, musquash root, poison parsnip, spotted corobane, water hemlock

• eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis)
• Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis)
• Carolina hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana)
• Taiwan hemlock, Chinese hemlock (Tsuga chinensis)
• northern Japanese hemlock (Tsuga diversifolia)
• Himalayan hemlock (Tsuga dumosa)
• Forrest's hemlock (Tsuga forrestii)
• western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla)
• southern Japanese hemlock (Tsuga sieboldii)
• mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana)
• poison hemlock (Conium maculatum)
• hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae)
• hemlock water parsnip (Sium suave)