carminative

Etymology

From Latin carminō (“to card, hence to cleanse”), from carmen (“a card for freeing wool or flax from the coarser parts, and from extraneous matter”).

adj

1. Relieving discomfort of gas in the digestive tract.
   If too much milke be the cauſe, then the Nurſe ſhall not give the childe ſucke ſo often, nor in ſuch plenty: If it proceed from wind, and that doe cauſe the childe to be thus troubled, it ſhall be diſcuſſed with Fomentations applied to the belly and navell; and with Carminative Cliſters, which ſhall bee given him, […] 1635, James Guillimeau [i.e., Jacques Guillemeau], “Of Gripings and Fretting in the Belly, which Trouble Little Children”, in The Nvrsing of Children[…], London: Printed by Anne Griffin[…]; published in Child-birth, or, The Happy Delivery of VVomen[…], London: Printed by Anne Griffih[…], 1635, →OCLC, page 52

noun

1. (medicine) A drug or substance that induces the releasing of gas from the digestive tract.
   But Master Nathaniel was indifferent to these manifestations of unpopularity. Let mental suffering be intense enough, and it becomes a sort of carminative. 1926, Hope Mirrlees, chapter 9, in Lud-in-the-Mist