Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

(Medicine) The light spongy pulp of the fruit of the bitter cucumber (Citrullus colocynthis, or Cucumis colocynthis), an Asiatic plant allied to the watermelon; coloquintida. It comes in white balls, is intensely bitter, and a powerful cathartic. Called also bitter apple, bitter cucumber, bitter gourd.