meconium

English

Etymology

From Latin mēcōnium (“opium; excrement of a newborn child”), from Ancient Greek μηκώνιον (mēkṓnion, “poppy-juice, opium”), from μήκων (mḗkōn, “poppy”).

Pronunciation
  • Rhymes: -əʊniəm

Noun

meconium (countable and uncountable, plural meconiums)

  1. (medicine) A dark green mass, the contents of the fetal intestines during the later stages of mammalian gestation, that forms the first feces of the newborn.
    • 1915, John Lovett Morse, Fritz Bradley Talbot, Diseases of Nutrition and Infant Feeding, New York: MacMillan, page 78:
      The meconium is dark brownish-green in color. The first meconium passed is semi-solid, having been partially dried out in the large intestine.
  2. (obsolete) Opium.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:opium

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