saxifragous

English

Etymology

Latin saxifragus (“stone-breaking”), from saxum (“stone”) + frangere (“to break”).

Adjective

saxifragous (comparative more saxifragous, superlative most saxifragous)

1. (obsolete, medicine) Dissolving bladder stones.
   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquries into very many received tenets and commonly presumed truths

     it came to be ordered that the Goat should be fed with saxifragous herbes, and such as are conceived of power to breake the stone.

   • 1677, William Hughes, The man of sin: or a discourse of popery

     I have six or seven Instances more, ... which will make such a Saxifragous Dose, that no scruple can stand before it.