noun
- A highly toxic alkaloid compound found in plants of the aconite genus, used historically in medicine and poisons.
Usage: chemistry; toxicology; formal
Examples
- Aconitine is one of the most potent plant toxins known to science.
- The chemist isolated aconitine from the monkshood plant for research purposes.
- Exposure to aconitine can cause severe cardiac and neurological effects.
- Medieval assassins sometimes used aconitine to poison their targets.
- Modern pharmaceutical research has studied aconitine's potential therapeutic applications.