Meaning of opium in English

Table of contents
  1. Pronunciation
  2. Noun
    1. Etymology
    2. Definitions

  1. Pronunciation

    /ˈoʊpiəm/

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  1. Noun

    opium

    Etymology

    late Middle English: via Latin from Greek opion‘poppy juice’, from opos‘juice’, from an Indo-European root meaning ‘water’

    Definitions

    1. an addictive narcotic extracted from seed capsules of the opium poppy

Famous quotes

  • « Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. »
    Karl Marx
  • « Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide. »
    Tom Robbins
  • « Religious suffering is at once the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of the heartless world, as it is the soul of soulless condition. It is the opium of the people. »
    John Desmond Bernal
  • « Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco. »
    Edmund Burke
  • « Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death. »
    Jean Cocteau

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