Meaning of Laudanum | Babel Free

Definitions

Any of several tinctures of opium, once widely used for various medical purposes and as a recreational drug.

uncountable, usually

Equivalents

Examples

“Ever since my recovery from the fever I had been in the custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum; for it was by means of this drug only that I was enabled to gain⟳ the rest⟳ necessary for the preservation of life.”

“Whatever else was wanting to a wise man's happiness, —of laudanum I would have⟳ given him as much as he wished, and in a golden cup.”

“Whipping and abuse are like⟳ laudanum; you have⟳ to double⟳ the dose as the sensibilities decline⟳.”

“Laudanum, a derivative of opium, was the name⟳ given to a secret remedy concocted by the occultist Paracelsus, in the sixteenth century.”

“At the time, Wilson writes, England was “marinated in opium, which was taken for everything from upset⟳ stomachs to sore heads.” It was swallowed in the form⟳ of pills or dissolved in alcohol to make⟳ laudanum, the tincture preferred by De Quincey.”

“In Sydenham’s 1683 treatise on the disease, for the sudden onset of violent symptoms he recommended laudanum — a tincture of opium and alcohol — to take⟳ the edge off the pain; […]”

CEFR level