Ne*pen"thes (?), n. [NL., fr. Gr. . See Nepenthe.]
1.
Same as Nepenthe.
Milton.
2. Bot.
A genus of climbing plants found in India, Malaya, etc., which have the leaves prolonged into a kind of stout tendril terminating in a pitcherlike appendage, whence the plants are often called pitcher plants and monkey-cups. There are about thirty species, of which the best known is Nepenthes distillatoria. See Pitcher plant.
© Webster 1913.