abortifacientn.adj.

1857 W. Tully Materia Medica I. i. 193 In short, this article is represented as nauseous bitter, as vellicating the fauces, as an acrid-poison, as a resolvent,..as an abortifacient, [etc.].

1861 Year-bk. Med. & Surg. 1860 (New Sydenham Soc.) 467 Abortifacients are to be divided..into two classes.

1875 H. C. Wood Treat. Therapeutics (1879) 537 Its use as an abortifacient is accompanied by the gravest dangers to life.

1949 H. W. C. Vines Green's Man. Pathol. (ed. 17) xii. 311 Lead..is a moderately common form of abortifacient.

1970 Harper's Mag. Apr. 98/1 A safe morning-after or once-a-month pill..would, in all probability, be a biochemical abortifacient.

1990 L. H. Tribe Abortion 122 The line between abortifacient and contraceptive is by no means clear.

2006 Brit. Jrnl. Hist. Sci. 39 589 Why did Europeans bring back certain kinds of information (e.g. taxonomic and economic) about the peacock flower of the Old World, while leaving knowledge of its use as an abortifacient in the New World?

1858 W. Tully Materia Medica I. ii. 1356 It is doubtless by its Abortifacient power that it causes the eggs of Fowls to be extruded before there has been time for a shell to be formed.

1875 H. C. Wood Treat. Therapeutics (1879) 70 It seems to me incredible that..doses of quinia are abortifacient.

1956 Nature 14 Jan. 59/2 The abortifacient action of certain anti-metabolites which are related to nucleic acid metabolism.

1986 N. Farah Maps iii. 51 They made her take concoctions which, among other things, included the broth of roots and shrubs which were known to have abortifacient powers.

2000 J. Mann Murder, Magic, & Med. (rev. ed.) iii. 116 It [sc. nutmeg] was imbued with aphrodisiac, soporific, or abortifacient properties, depending upon which authority one believes.