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Synonyms

narcosis

American  
[nahr-koh-sis] / nɑrˈkoʊ sɪs /

noun

  1. a state of stupor or drowsiness.

  2. a state of stupor or greatly reduced activity produced by a drug.


narcosis British  
/ nɑːˈkəʊsɪs /

noun

  1. unconsciousness induced by narcotics or general anaesthetics

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of narcosis

1685–95; < New Latin < Greek nárkōsis. See narc-, -osis

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.

“The freeway experience ... is the only secular communion Los Angeles has.… Actual participation requires total surrender, a concentration so intense as to seem a kind of narcosis, a rapture-of-the-freeway.”

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 11, 2023

Part of the reason lies in the challenge, another in how deep dives change the chemistry in the brain, creating nitrogen narcosis or a “rapture of the deep” that freedivers describe in lyrical terms.

From Washington Post • Nov. 13, 2020

From 40 metres to 60 metres you get nitrogen narcosis and from 80 metres and deeper you get oxygen poisoning.

From The Guardian • Nov. 9, 2019

Using a helium-oxygen mixture avoids the disoriented mental state known as nitrogen narcosis, the so-called rapture of the deep.

From Textbooks • Feb. 14, 2019

Thus, Neuschuler has observed that narcosis causes an elevation of the intra-ocular tension of from 2 to 6 degrees as measured with Fick's tonometer.

From Glaucoma A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 by Nance, Willis O.