dormitive
nounEtymology From French dormitif, from the verb dormir (“to sleep”)
1
A medicine to promote sleep; a soporific or opiate.
dormitive
adjEtymology From French dormitif, from the verb dormir (“to sleep”)
1
Causing sleep.
- But "imitation" throws no light upon why they so act; it repeats the fact as an explanation of itself. It is an explanation of the same order as the famous saying that opium puts men to sleep because of its dormitive power.1916, John Dewey, Democracy and Education:
- Quare Opium facit dormire: ... Quia est in eo Virtus dormitiva. (Why Opium produces sleep: ... Because there is in it a dormitive power.)1673, Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), Le Malade Imaginere, Act III, Interlude iii:
- Derived terms
- dormitive principle, dormitive virtue