chloroform

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to anesthetize with chloroform

   Doctors used to put people under by chloroforming them.

2. 2
   noun

   A halogenated hydrocarbon, trichloromethane, CHCl₃; it is a volatile, sweet-smelling liquid, used extensively as a solvent and formerly as an anesthetic.

   Some assume that chloroform is a gas because it was given by inhalation.

3. 3
   verb

   To treat, or to render unconscious, with chloroform.

   1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London Geoffrey was first chloroformed, I think. The hand that picked Nipper up to dispose of him had certainly touched chloroform just before. Drugged; does that bring us nearer by taking us further away, I wonder?

4. 4
   noun

   a volatile liquid haloform (CHCl3)

Borrowed from French chloroforme, portmanteau of terchloride (tertiary chloride, trichloride) and formyle (CH, an obsolete radical of formic acid) by Jean-Baptiste Dumas, from 1834. By surface analysis, chloro- + -form.

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