Noun: opium
| Singular | opium |
| Plural | opiums; opia |
Sample Sentences
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From hence we firſt ſailed to Achin, in the iſland of Sumatra, and then to Siam, where we bartered our wares for ſome arrack and opium, the laſt of which bore a great price among the Chineſe:[…] [1777, [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], 7th edition, London: […] S. Crowder, […]; J. Sewell, […]; W. Johnston, […]; and B. Law, […], →OCLC, page 277:]
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Opium is largely used by the Chinese as a sexual provocation, both by men and women. [1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 169:]
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When Zhang Jiao and his Yellow Turbans send their peasants, they're not sending their best. They're sending peasants with lots of problems and the peasants bring their problems across the Yangtze. They're bringing opium, they're bandits. And some, I assume, are good people. [2026 January 27, obongommunism, Instagram, depicts the speaker as U.S. President Donald Trump as a Han dynasty emperor:]
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Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, […] It is the opium of the people. (A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right) [1843, Karl Marx, Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie [A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right]:]
Nouns inflected like opium
hemiscrotum,
saeculum,
stramonium,
proscenium,
dinotherium,
quinquennium,
ambulacrum,
prolabium,
preepisternum,
coimperium,
septennium,
fulcrum,
emporium,
subminimum,
mausolæum,
mausoleum,
serpentarium,
triregnum,
viaticum,
megaannum, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *sokʷós
3. Ancient Greek ὀπός (opós)
4. Proto-Indo-European *-yósder.
5. Ancient Greek -ῐος (-ĭos)?
6. Ancient Greek -ῐον (-ĭon)
7. Ancient Greek ὄπιον (ópion)bor.
8. Latin opiumbor.
9. ▲
10. Ancient Greek ὄπιον (ópion)bor.
11. English opium
12. Borrowed from Latin opium and Ancient Greek ὄπιον (ópion), from ὀπός (opós, “juice of a plant”), from Proto-Indo-European *sokʷós (“juice, resin”). See: Latin Nouns '
opium', Ancient Greek Nouns '
ὄπιον'.