jalapa

plural jalapas

1. countableuncountableThe convolvulaceous plant Ipomoea purga, whose roots are used to make the drug jalap.

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   It contains a great deal of pungent salt, with a mixture of acidity, instead of earth and brimstone; it is a good cathartic, especially for the Negroes. Though at the present day, the jalapa is propagated in every part of America, yet it originally came from the city of Xalapa, from which it derived its name.

   1815, Antonio de Alcedo, George Alexander Thompson, The Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies, page 52