stupefacient
/ˌstjuːpɪˈfeɪs(ə)nt
/Medicine
adjective
(Chiefly of a drug) causing semi-consciousness.
noun
A stupefacient drug.In his column George Will wrote that our yearly consumption of stupefacients amounts to $50 billion....
- Regarding analgesics, he was remarkably current: ‘The most powerful of the stupefacients is opium.’
- Although some local fishers were trained by foreign fishers to use cyanide as a stupefacient, others found that they could catch live food reef fish using traditional methods, or variations of them.
Origin
Mid 17th century: from Latin stupefacient- 'stupefying', from the verb stupefacere.