meconium
nounUK /mɪˈkəʊnɪ.əm/
Etymology From Latin mēcōnium (“opium; excrement of a newborn child”), from Ancient Greek μηκώνιον (mēkṓnion, “poppy-juice, opium”), from μήκων (mḗkōn, “poppy”).
1
Medicine, Sciences 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.
- The meconium is dark brownish-green in color. The first meconium passed is semi-solid, having been partially dried out in the large intestine.1915, John Lovett Morse, Fritz Bradley Talbot, Diseases of Nutrition and Infant Feeding, New York: MacMillan, page 78:
2
Obsolete Opium.
- Derived terms
- meconic, meconium aspiration, meconium ileus