barbital

plural barbitals

1. countableuncountableThe first commercially marketed barbiturate, used as a hypnotic drug until the mid-1950s.

   A woman, who had taken morphine and barbital, was found apparently dead after a night's exposure in some lonely spot. There were no reflexes, no pulse, no respiration or heart-beat. Yet she was alive—existing without oxygen—an impossibility as we had always supposed.

   1921, Eden Phillpotts, chapter VIII, in The Grey Room

   Synonyms: barbitone, diethylbarbituric acid, diethylmalonyl urea, veronal