This is series of posts on interesting and unusual words and phrases.
The first set of words are adjectives that describe a shape and are often used in botany, mineralogy, and describing artistic forms.
The word for today is botuliform: sausage shaped; long, cylindrical, hollow, incurved at each end; from the Latin, botulus. A sausage maker or dealer was called a botularius.
Botulinum toxin, or botulinum neurotoxin (Commonly called botox), is a highly potent neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum and related species. It prevents the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from axon endings at the neuromuscular junction, thus causing flaccid paralysis. The toxin causes the disease botulism. The toxin is also used commercially for medical and cosmetic purposes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin
The English word, pudding, may have come the L. botulus, through Ital. bodello, through Fr. boudin.
Steward Archives 