Valium
nounUK /ˈvæl.i.əm/ · US /ˈvæl.i.əm/
Etymology A marketing coinage.
1
Medicine, Pharmacology, Sciences The drug diazepam.
- These are the minor tranquilizers such as Diazepam (Valium), Chlordiazepoxide (Librium), Oxazepam (Serax), and related benzodiazepines, and Meprobamate, which are used to treat anxiety neurosis.1979, Harold M. Silverman, Gilbert I. Simon, The Pill Book […] , 1st edition, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 385:
- Mothers little helpers were pills—Miltown, amphetamine, barbiturates, Librium, and Valium were the most popular and widely available in the fifties and early sixties—that were used to keep women in their place, to make them comfortable in a setting that should have been uncomfortable, to encourage them to focus on tasks that did not matter.2003, Samuel H. Barondes, quoting Peter D. Kramer, chapter 4, in Better than Prozac, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 47:
2
A Valium pill.