Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Addiction to morphine.
  • noun A diseased condition caused by habitual or addictive use of morphine.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A morbid state induced by the use of morphine.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.) A morbid condition produced by the excessive or prolonged use of morphine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Morphine addiction.
  • noun Disease caused by excessive usage of morphine.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • It is for this reason that lying is most prevalent and exhibited with the least amount of _critique_ in those individuals who either have never developed those restraining tendencies which a normal appreciation of social, ethical, and æsthetic consideration demands, or in whom these restraining influences have been weakened or abolished by some exogenous insult to the nervous system -- as, for instance, the tendency to fabrication dependent upon chronic alcoholism or morphinism.

    Studies in Forensic Psychiatry Bernard Glueck

  • She had been placed in this institution under legal restraint to be treated for morphinism, and, according to her brother, "pure cussedness."

    Our Nervous Friends — Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness Robert S. Carroll

  • Against the widespread vices of alcoholism, morphinism, the ether habit, etc., hypnotism has been successfully employed, but it has not prevented speedy and fatal relapses.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 7: Gregory XII-Infallability 1840-1916 1913

  • I decided to make the somewhat disproportionate sacrifice of time in order to study whether even such an extreme case of morphinism is accessible to psychotherapeutic treatment.

    Psychotherapy Hugo M��nsterberg 1889

  • On the other hand, I may say that I have not seen a single case in which a really patient and insistent treatment of morphinism has not been successful, even if the destructive dose of forty grains a day had become habitual.

    Psychotherapy Hugo M��nsterberg 1889

  • The situation of alcoholism repeats itself in still more ruinous forms with morphinism and cocainism, vices which grow in this country to an alarming degree.

    Psychotherapy Hugo M��nsterberg 1889

  • We have the catacombs and a queer old professor sighing after idealism, and Leo XIII, with the unearthly face among the saints, and the advice to return to the prayer-book, and the libel on the decadent who dies of morphinism after confessing and taking the sacrament -- that is, after repenting of his errors in the name of the Church.

    Letters of Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 1882

  • Alcoholism and morphinism, or an uncontrollable desire for alcohol or opium in some form or other, are now recognized as evidences of degeneration.

    Religion and Lust or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire James Weir 1881

  • The evils of morphinism are even greater than those of alcoholism, and their transmission no less sure.

    What a Young Woman Ought to Know Mary Wood-Allen 1874

  • "Then, too, one of the most marked phases of morphinism is the pleasure its victims take in concealing their motives and conduct.

    The Poisoned Pen 1908

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