decoction (dekokshon)

[ in water, in order to extract the peculiar prop erties or virtues. If after a decoction of hearbes in a winter-night we expose the liquor to the frigid air, we may observe in the morning under a crust of ice the perfect appearance of the plants that were taken from it. Glanville, Vanity of Dogmatizing, v. 2. The liquor in which an animal or a vegetable substance has been boiled; water impregnated by boiling with the properties of such a substance: as, a decoction of Peruvian bark. If a plant be boiled in water, the strained liquor is called the decoction of the plant. Arbuthnot. decomposition IMG:content-2179.png:[blocks in formation] decoct. (Rare.] decocture (de-kok'tūr), n. tura, dakoit.