Meanings
- historicaluncountableA cordial, made from a spiced wine mixed with sugar and spices, usually including cinnamon, which are strained out by a cloth before the drink is consumed.
Spiced wine, sweetened with sugar or honey, perhaps the original of the modern liqueur, was employed occasionally under the name of hippocras.
1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 6411 more example
It is long since that disorderly potentate [the Lord of Misrule] went the way of the Dodo, and hippocras has become almost as mythical as ambrosia; but, once upon a time, they played a prominent part in legal education.
1861 November 23, J. Hamilton Fyfe, “High Days in the Temple”, in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, volume V, number 126, New York, N.Y.: Leavitt, Trow, & Co., →OCLC, page 610, column 2
Origin
- Medieval Latinvinum Hippocraticum“Hippocrates's wine”
- Old Frenchipocras
- Middle Englishypocras
- Englishhippocras
From Middle English ypocras, from Old French ipocras, ypocras (“Hippocrates”), after Medieval Latin vinum Hippocraticum (“Hippocrates's wine”), due to the fact that the wine was filtered through a Hippocratic sleeve.
More words from Middle English, Old French, Medieval Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
French hypocras
- hypocrascordial made from a spiced wine mixed with sugar and spices
German Hypocras, Ypocras
- Hypocrascordial made from a spiced wine mixed with sugar and spices
- Ypocrascordial made from a spiced wine mixed with sugar and spices
Italian ippocrasso, ipocrasso
- ippocrassocordial made from a spiced wine mixed with sugar and spices
- ipocrassocordial made from a spiced wine mixed with sugar and spices
Polish hipokras
- hipokrascordial made from a spiced wine mixed with sugar and spices
Portuguese hipocraz
- hipocrazcordial made from a spiced wine mixed with sugar and spices
Russian гипокра́с
- гипокра́с (gipokrás)cordial made from a spiced wine mixed with sugar and spices
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
hippocras. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hippocras
“hippocras.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hippocras. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hippocras,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hippocras.
Source: hippocras on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.