laudanum
Americannoun
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a tincture of opium.
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Obsolete. any preparation in which opium is the chief ingredient.
noun
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a tincture of opium
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(formerly) any medicine of which opium was the main ingredient
Etymology
Origin of laudanum
1595–1605; originally Medieval Latin variant of ladanum; arbitrarily used by Paracelsus to name a remedy based on opium
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But then so did the telephone, the railway, internal combustion, photography, laudanum, mirror glass, fire, television, gunpowder, the crossbow, distillation, the slingshot, the bridge high across a foaming ghyll.
From The Guardian • Apr. 19, 2016
Geraldine Chaplin brandishes a whip, Charlotte Rampling swigs laudanum, Mathieu Amalric inhabits an "elevator apartment," and Maria de Medeiros is an absurdly gullible mother.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 18, 2016
Anesthesia was virtually unknown; patients scarcely drugged by doses of laudanum or brandy expected only death from the agony of the knife.
From Time Magazine Archive
By the bye, you may just as well add that, instead of taking the laudanum, he had better resort to his old remedy—of liquorice and water.
From Poor Jack by Marryat, Frederick
The use of laudanum in poultices used for ear trouble is not recommended because its soothing power may obscure symptoms that might appear and be dangerous in themselves and need quick and thorough treatment.
From Mother's Remedies Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers of the United States and Canada by Ritter, Thomas Jefferson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
