Cannabis Definition

kănə-bĭs

noun

Webster's New World

A tall annual dioecious plant (Cannabis sativa), native to Central Asia and having alternate, palmately divided leaves and tough bast fibers.

American Heritage Medicine

Marijuana or any other substance derived from the flowering tops of the hemp.

Webster's New World

Any of several mildly euphoriant, intoxicating hallucinogenic drugs, such as ganja, hashish, or marijuana, prepared from various parts of this plant.

American Heritage Medicine

Synonyms:

pronoun

A taxonomic genus within the family Cannabaceae — hemp.

Wiktionary

Origin of Cannabis

From Latin cannabis 'hemp', from Ancient Greek κάνναβις (kánnabis). The term was claimed to ultimately be from Scythian by Herodotus (compare Kurdish kinif, Ossetian gän). It may be a compound of Proto-Finno-Ugric *kéne (“hemp”) (compare Estonian kena, Lapp kèdž', Udmurt kenem) and *piš (“to burn; nettle”) (compare Komi/Udmurt pyš, Khanty piš) but may also be connected to Assyrian qunnabu 'cannabis'. This word wandered widely into Semitic, Baltic, Slavic and Germanic (as *hanapiz). See hemp.

From Wiktionary
Latin from Greek kannabis

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
See English cannabis.

From Wiktionary

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