morphine

English

Alternative forms

• morphin, morphina (obsolete)

Etymology

Borrowed from French morphine or German Morphin, from Ancient Greek Μορφεύς (Morpheús, “the god and personification of dreams”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɔː.fiːn/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmɔɹˌfin/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈmoː.fiːn/

Noun

morphine (countable and uncountable, plural morphines)

1. (biochemistry, pharmacology) A crystalline alkaloid (7,8-didehydro-4,5-epoxy-17-methyl-morphinan-3,6-diol), extracted from opium, the salts of which are soluble in water and are used as analgesics, anaesthetics and sedatives; it is one of a group of morphine alkaloids.

Synonyms

• morphia
• See also Thesaurus:recreational drug

Derived terms

• morphinate

Translations

crystalline alkaloid

• Arabic: مُورْفِين‎ m (murfīn)
• Asturian: morfina f
• Basque: morfina
• Bulgarian: морфин m (morfin)
• Catalan: morfina (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 嗎啡／吗啡 (maa¹ fe¹)

  Gan: 嗎啡／吗啡 ('ma³ fi¹)

  Hakka: 嗎啡／吗啡 (mà-fî/mò-fî)

  Mandarin: 嗎啡／吗啡 (zh) (mǎfēi)

  Min Nan: 嗎啡／吗啡, 吗啡 (mô͘-hui)

• Czech: morfin m, morfium n
• Danish: morfin (da) c
• Esperanto: morfino
• Estonian: morfiin
• Faroese: morfin n
• Finnish: morfiini (fi)
• French: morphine (fr) f
• Galician: morfina f
• German: Morphin (de) n, Morphium (de) n
• Hungarian: morfin (hu)
• Icelandic: morfín (is) n
• Ido: morfino (io)
• Indonesian: morfina
• Italian: morfina (it) f
• Japanese: モルヒネ (moruhine), モルフィン (morufin), モヒ (ja) (mohi)
• Kazakh: морфин (morfin)
• Khmer: ម័រហ្វីន (mɔəfiin)
• Korean: 모르핀 (moreupin)
• Malay: morfina
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: morfin m or n

  Nynorsk: morfin m or n

• Occitan: morfina (oc) f
• Polish: morfina (pl) f
• Portuguese: morfina (pt) f
• Romanian: morfină (ro) f
• Russian: мо́рфий (ru) m (mórfij)
• Spanish: morfina (es) f
• Swedish: morfin (sv)
• Thai: มอร์ฟีน (th)
• Turkish: morfin (tr)
• Vietnamese: mocfin

See also

• codeine
• heroin

References

• “morphine”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “morphine”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

French

Etymology

From Ancient Greek Μορφεύς (Morpheús) +‎ -ine.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɔʁ.fin/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

morphine f (uncountable)

1. morphine

References

• “morphine” in the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 8th Edition (1932–35).

Further reading

• “morphine”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.