Emily Dickinson Lexicon

A-MO'MUM, n. [Gr. αμωμον; Ar.حَمَامَا hamauma, from حَمَّ‎‎ hamma, to warm or heat; the heating plant.]

A genus of plants; all natives of warm climates, and remarkable for their pungency and aromatic properties. It includes the granum paradisi, or grains of paradise. – Cyc. True amomum is a round fruit, from the East, of the size of a grape, containing, under a membranous cover, a number of angular seeds of a dark brown color, in three cells. Of this fruit, ten or twelve grow in a cluster, adhering, without a pedicle, to a woody stalk. It is of a pungent taste and aromatic smell, and was formerly much used in medicine, but is now a stranger to the shops. – Plin. 12. 13. Encyc.