To·bac·co n.
 1. Bot. An American plant (Nicotiana Tabacum) of the Nightshade family, much used for smoking and chewing, and as snuff. As a medicine, it is narcotic, emetic, and cathartic. Tobacco has a strong, peculiar smell, and an acrid taste.
 Note: ☞ The name is extended to other species of the genus, and to some unrelated plants, as Indian tobacco (Nicotiana rustica, and also Lobelia inflata), mountain tobacco (Arnica montana), and Shiraz tobacco (Nicotiana Persica).
 2. The leaves of the plant prepared for smoking, chewing, etc., by being dried, cured, and manufactured in various ways.
 Tobacco box Zool., the common American skate.
 Tobacco camphor. Chem. See Nicotianine.
 Tobacco man, a tobacconist. [R.]
 Tobacco pipe. (a) A pipe used for smoking, made of baked clay, wood, or other material. (b) Bot. Same as Indian pipe, under Indian.
 Tobacco-pipe clay Min., a species of clay used in making tobacco pipes; -- called also cimolite.
 Tobacco-pipe fish. Zool. See Pipemouth.
 Tobacco stopper, a small plug for pressing down the tobacco in a pipe as it is smoked.
 Tobacco worm Zool., the larva of a large hawk moth (Sphinx Carolina syn. Phlegethontius Carolina).  It is dark green, with seven oblique white stripes bordered above with dark brown on each side of the body.  It feeds upon the leaves of tobacco and tomato plants, and is often very injurious to the tobacco crop. See Illust. of Hawk moth.

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 Hawk moth Zool. Any moth of the family Sphingidae, of which there are numerous genera and species.  They are large, handsome moths with long narrow forewings capable of powerful flight and hovering over flowers to feed.  They fly mostly at twilight and hover about flowers like a humming bird, sucking the honey by means of a long, slender proboscis.  The larvae are large, hairless caterpillars ornamented with green and other bright colors, and often with a caudal spine. See Sphinx, also Tobacco worm, and Tomato worm.
 Syn: -- hawk moth, sphingid, sphinx moth, hummingbird moth.
 Note: ☞ The larvae of several species of hawk moths feed on grapevines.  The elm-tree hawk moth is Ceratomia Amyntor.

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