Also 8 lodanum, 9 dial. lodlum, Sc. lodomy. [a. mod.L. laudanum, used by Paracelsus as the name of a medicament for which he gives a pretended prescription, the ingredients comprising leaf-gold, pearls not perforated, etc. (Opera 1658, I. 492/2). It was early suspected that opium was the real agent of the cures which Paracelsus professed to have effected by this costly means; hence the name was applied to certain opiate preparations which were sold as identical with his famous remedy.
It is doubtful whether the word as used by Paracelsus was a fanciful application of laudanum a med.L. variant of LADANUM, or was suggested by laudāre to praise or by some other word, or was formed quite arbitrarily.]
1. In early use, a name for various preparations in which opium was the main ingredient. Now only: The simple alcoholic tincture of opium.
1602–3. Manningham, Diary (Camden), 46. There is a certaine kinde of compound called Laudanum … the virtue of it is very soueraigne to mitigate anie payne.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., II. § 12. I need no other Laudanum than this to make me sleep.
1694. Salmon, Bate’s Dispens. (1713), 267/2. It is of the Nature of other Laudanums.
1704. F. Fuller, Med. Gymn. (1711), 255. I was deny’d likewise the Ease which is to be obtain’d by Laudanum.
1739. ‘R. Bull,’ trans. Dedekindus’ Grobianus, 166. Your Mischief, being fully done, Will make you sleep as well as Laudanum.
a. 1828. Lang Johnny More, ix. in Child, Ballads (1892), IV. 398. They … gae him draps o lodomy That laid him fast asleep.
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xxxiv. 310. I gave him laudanum, and held him close to my bosom while he slept to death.
fig. a. 1711. Ken, Dedicat., Poet. Wks. 1721, I. 3. Pain haunting me, I court the sacred Muse, Verse is the only Laudanum I use.
1789. G. Keate, Pelew Isl., 293. The Laudanum of rhetoric, whose property will occasionally benumb … the power of common understandings.
† 2. = LADANUM 1.
1616. Bullokar, Laudanum, a yellowish gumme, as some write; notwithstanding others affirm it to be made of a dew, which falleth vpon a certaine herbe in Greece.
1702. W. J., trans. Bruyn’s Voy. Levant, lxxii. 272. Laudanum … proceeds from a Dew which falls on the leaves of a small Plant about half a foot high, which does something resemble small Sage.
3. Comb., as laudanum-raised adj.
1800. Weems, Washington, i. (1877), 8. The fine laudanum-raised spirits of the young sparklers.
Hence Laudanum v. trans., to dose with laudanum.
1839–40. Thackeray, Catherine, v. You’d laudanum him.
