opiates

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Related to opiates: Benzodiazepines

o·pi·ate

(ō′pē-ĭt, -āt′)

1. Any of various analgesic, narcotic drugs derived from the opium poppy, such as morphine or codeine.

2. See opioid.

3. Something that dulls the senses and induces relaxation or torpor.

adj.

a. Containing opium or any of its derivatives.

b. Resembling opium or its derivatives in activity.

2. Inducing sleep or sedation; soporific.

3. Causing dullness or apathy; deadening.

tr.v. (-āt′) o·pi·at·ed, o·pi·at·ing, o·pi·ates

1. To subject to the action of an opiate.

2. To dull or deaden as if with a narcotic drug.

[Middle English, from Medieval Latin opiātum, from Latin opium, opium; see opium.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

opiates

Derivatives of opium, mainly used for sedative or narcotic effects.

References in classic literature ?

She waited patiently for him to continue his instructions, but the opiates had begun to take effect and Martin lapsed into sleep.

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There were opiates for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral sense to sleep.

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Having settled ourselves into this infidelity, our skill is expended to procure alleviations, diversion, opiates. We adorn the victim with manual skill, his tongue with languages, his body with inoffensive and comely manners.

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An opiate vapour, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top.

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The reader will perhaps imagine the sensations which now arose in Jones to have been so sweet and delicious, that they would rather tend to produce a chearful serenity in the mind, than any of those dangerous effects which we have mentioned; but in fact, sensations of this kind, however delicious, are, at their first recognition, of a very tumultuous nature, and have very little of the opiate in them.

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But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the coach (in a confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate) was always with him, there was another current of impression that never ceased to run, all through the night.

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Such sleep as that, brought on without an opiate, would be worth more to me than half my income; for it would suppose health and an untroubled mind."

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The hot weather of July had crept upon them unawares, and the atmosphere of the flat vale hung heavy as an opiate over the dairy-folk, the cows, and the trees.

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There were two bottles: one contained a drug which he took regularly, and the other an opiate if the pain grew unendurable.

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And how we did sleep!--for there is no opiate like Alpine pedestrianism.

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The opiate racked my head; it did not do its work; and I longed to sleep till evening with a longing I have never known before or since.

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"He may have been taking an opiate," was a thought that crossed Mr.

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