laudanum

plural laudanums

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

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

   1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter XX, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC

   5 more 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.

   1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter 4, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC

   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.

   1821 September–October, [Thomas De Quincey], “[Part II.] Introduction to the Pains of Opium.”, in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, 2nd edition, London: […] [J. Moyes] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1823, →OCLC, pages 129–130

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

   1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 171

   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.

   2016 October 16, Dan Chiasson, “The Man Who Invented the Drug Memoir”, in The New Yorker

   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; […]

   2020 November 13, Ligaya Mishan, “Once the Disease of Gluttonous Aristocrats, Gout Is Now Tormenting the Masses”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

present singular third person laudanums · participle present laudanuming · participle past laudanumed · past laudanumed

1. transitiveTo add laudanum to (a drink or the like).
2. rareTo cause (a person) to be high on laudanum.