A plant compound containing one or more alcohols or sugars and a biologically active compound. The sugar part is called a glycone, the other stuff is called an aglycone. The important things to remember about some glycosides is that they may pass through much of the intestinal tract, with the hydrolysis of the molecule only occurring in the brush borders of the small intestine. The result is that the bioactive part, the aglycone, is absorbed directly into the bloodstream, and is often not floating around the intestinal tract contents at all.