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potions

Medical Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Medicinal liquids or mixtures, often herbal or alchemical, used as remedies for illness or injury; in literature and history, they are associated with healing, magic, or transformation.

Detailed Definition
A potion is a liquid preparation, especially one used as a medicine or remedy in older usage. In the poem, the housewives are brewing home remedies for the sick grandfather.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The housewives round their potions brew” presents communal folk medicine or witchcraft; Macbeth’s witches brew a famous cauldron of unsettling ingredients; “Herbal potions steamed beside the stove,” can describe healing preparations; A modern poem may question whose knowledge is dismissed when women’s remedies are called potions
Additional Notes
In “their potions brew,” the word refers to old-style remedies, which is a specialized and somewhat old-fashioned sense.; Found in the poem, A Child To His Sick Grandfather by Joanna Baillie
Also Known As
elixirs brews concoctions tonics
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