Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Inducing or tending to induce sleep.
- adj. Drowsy.
- n. A drug or other substance that induces sleep; a hypnotic.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Tending to produce sleep.
- n. Anything which causes sleep, as certain medicines.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Causing sleep; tending to cause sleep; soporiferous.
- n. A medicine, drug, plant, or other agent that has the quality of inducing sleep; a narcotic.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. inducing mental lethargy
- n. a drug that induces sleep
- adj. sleep inducing
Examples
“There is a misunderstanding about the meaning of the word soporific and when Thompson explains it to McDonald they both enjoy a laugh, at themselves mostly, they let go a little, and it is one of the most human and intimate moments in the film up until that point.”
“Could anyone ever consider terrific a delivery best called soporific?”
“It may be remembered that Archibald, in what we may term his soporific period, had manifested a strong, although entirely irrational, repugnance to this east chamber.”
“The first half could best be described as soporific, the encounter displaying all the characteristics of a scrap that had the spectre of relegation very much at the banquet.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“soporific" -- and in explaining Santayana's eventual road to prestige”
“It was part of the reason that my vocabulary at age three included the word 'soporific'.”
“The best I can say about the first half of the performance is that I don't often get to use the word "soporific" in casual conversation.”
“While he quarreled with descriptions of his speaking style as "soporific," Kerry tacitly acknowledged that he failed to connect with enough voters on a personal level.”
“How about it Rudy - buy me a pastrami sandwich for every time I call a Romney speech "soporific"?”
“I will, however, agree that the June/July issue is somewhat "soporific" as Cheney and DeNiro called it.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘soporific’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Sound Sex
taciturn, deflower, recursive, parapraxis, comitative, atelic, awkward, eccentric, libidinous, astereognosis, aloof, moonglade and 44 more...
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Its a Stretch
pandiculation, persiflage, quixotic, abjure, non sequitur, ouevre, addlepated, shibboleth, bloviate, mundicidious, illaqueate, frigorific and 13 more...
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trait treats
efficacious, garish, implacable, intrepid, soporific, somniferous, fetid, lurid, undaunted, debonair, quiescent, fabulist
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Better Words
Extremely fond of adjectives. To conquer phlegmatic speech and indolent phrases.
auric, hemispherical, quadrivial, adumbral, weighty, deuced, aliquot, commendable, anterior, osculant, ferly, enceinte and 26 more...
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sleep
hypnopompic, hypnagogic, nocturnal vertigo, soporific, sleep debt, slow-wave sleep, sleep inertia, sleep hygiene, bruxism, exploding head sy..., hypnic jerk, oneironaut and 5 more...
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Meaningful
kingparton The first pages, of most of these old papers, are as soporific as a bed of poppies.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Tales and Sketches Nov 23, 2011
bilby Beddy bye-byes, bun-bun. Mar 30, 2009
seanahan Wait, eating lettuce makes you sleepy? Mar 30, 2009
paulbullen Soporific means causing sleepiness. Something is soporific if it causes sleepiness. If the effect of something is sleepiness, that thing is soporific. It is not the effect of that thing that is soporific, it is the thing itself, which is a cause.
Lettuce is soporific: the effect of eating lettuce is sleepiness. It is the cause of sleepiness--the lettuce--that is soporific, not the effect of that cause. It is possible that sleepiness is soporific (in that it tends to cause more sleepiness), but Beatrix Potter wanted to communicate the idea that lettuce itself causes sleepiness, not that sleepiness causes sleepiness.
She apparently had a desire to introduce the word "soporific", but she did so inaptly. Instead of saying, "It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is soporific," she should have said, "It is said lettuce is soporific, that eating too much lettuce makes you sleepy."
Mar 16, 2009
frindley Beatrix Potter's use of soporific is also invoked in Margaret Edson's excellent play W;t. (Also a film, the clever typography is meant to come out as Wit.) Mar 31, 2008
frindley I always bring out the Beatrix Potter quote as evidence that it is possible to nurture wordie-ness even in the very young. This is one of the very earliest books I remember reading. And even then I "got" what she was trying to do to my vocabulary, and I've been using the word ever since. Mar 31, 2008
jeffazi 1. a. causing or tending to cause sleep. b. tending to dull awareness or alertness.
2. of, relating to, or marked by sleepiness or lethargy
Dec 11, 2007
nkocharh "It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is 'soporific.'
"I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then I am not a rabbit.
"They certainly had a very soporific effect upon the Flopsy Bunnies!"
-Beatrix Potter, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies. Dec 11, 2006