opiate
nounEtymology From Middle English opiate, from Medieval Latin opiātus.
1
Medicine, Pharmacology, Sciences A drug, hormone or other substance derived from or related to opium.
2
Something that dulls the senses and induces a false and unrealistic sense of contentment.
- They chose atheism as an opiate.1692, Richard Bentley, [A Confutation of Atheism] (please specify the sermon), London: [Thomas Parkhurst; Henry Mortlock], published 1692–1693:
- The music—the fragrance of the flowers, whose odour was exhaling in the now falling dew—the languor of recent exertion—the sense of past dangers and present security—operated on Beatrice like the first and delicious stage of an opiate.1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 230:
- Derived terms
- antiopiate, opiatelike, opiatic, utopiate
- Hypernyms
- opioid