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Webster 1913 Edition


Succedaneum

Sucˊce-da′ne-um

,
Noun.
;
pl.
Succedanea
(#)
.
[NL. See
Succedaneous
.]
One who, or that which, succeeds to the place of another; that which is used for something else; a substitute;
specifically
(Med.)
,
a remedy used as a substitute for another.
In lieu of me, you will have a very charming
succedaneum
, Lady Harriet Stanhope.
Walpole.

Webster 1828 Edition


Succedaneum

SUCCEDA'NEUM

,
Noun.
[supra.] That which is used for something else; a substitute.

Definition 2024


succedaneum

succedaneum

English

Noun

succedaneum (plural succedaneums or succedanea)

  1. A substitute, replacement for something else, particularly of a medicine used in place of another.
    • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 3, chapter XIII, Democracy
      It is not your purses that suffer; your farm-rents, your commerces, your mill-revenues, loud as ye lament over these; no, it is not these alone, but a far deeper than these: it is your Souls that lie dead, crushed down under despicable Nightmares, Atheisms, Brain-fumes; and are not Souls at all, but mere succedanea for salt to keep your bodies and their appetites from putrefying!
    • 1857, Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, page 231 (ISBN 1857150570)
      It had not been ordered by Mr. Rerechild, the Barchester doctor whom she employed; and then the young mother mentioned some shockingly modern succedaneum, which Mr. Rerechild's new lights had taught him to recommend.
    • 1968, Frederick Exley, A Fan’s Notes, page 385
      Because it is only a dream, and as such no succedaneum for life, I fight very well; considering that they have all jumped in now and I am being beaten bloody and senseless by a phalanx of cashmere clubs, I hold my legs much longer than I should, hold them until I am suddenly engulfed by this new, this incomprehensible America.
    • 2002, Laurence Urdang, New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced words: Words We Know (until someone asks us what they mean), foreword (ISBN 1579120601)
      Not a succedaneum for satisfying the nympholepsy of nullifidians, it is hoped that the haecceity of this enchiridion of arcane and recondite sesquipedalian items will appeal to the oniomania of an eximious Gemeinschaft whose legerity and sophrosyne, whose Sprachgefühl and orexis will find more than fugacious fulfillment among its felicific pages.
    • 2004, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, page 205 (ISBN 0312423209)
      Mason, hands in the dough, watch’d his father openly, feeling the pain in his arms, the pale mass seething with live resistance,– hungry peoples’ invention to fill in for times of no Meat, and presently a Succedaneum for Our Lord’s own Flesh…The baker’s trade terrified the young man.

Latin

Adjective

succēdāneum

  1. nominative neuter singular of succēdāneus
  2. accusative masculine singular of succēdāneus
  3. accusative neuter singular of succēdāneus
  4. vocative neuter singular of succēdāneus