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chloroform

UK/ˈklɒɹə(ʊ)ˌfɔː(ɹ)m/US/ˈklɒɹə(ʊ)ˌfɔː(ɹ)m/
nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,293 of 15,258neutral

Chloroform is a sweet-smelling liquid once used to render patients unconscious. A pad soaked in chloroform.

It made surgery bearable in the 1840s and was abandoned because it damaged the liver and stopped hearts. The instant unconsciousness of films is entirely fiction, since real chloroform takes minutes.

Yamakiri · CC BY 3.0

Definitions of chloroform

  1. 1nounchloroformA sweet-smelling liquid once used to render patients unconscious.B2+

    “Chloroform made the operation possible and very nearly killed the patient.”

chloroform is a substance.

Where it comes from

French chloroforme is a blend of chlorine and formyle, coined by the chemist Dumas in 1834.

  1. French

    chloroforme

  2. English, today

    chloroform

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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

chloroform in the wild

  • Although this chemical species has not been isolated, it is a common intermediate in organic chemistry, being generated from chloroform.

    Dichlorocarbene

  • The properties of CDCl3 and ordinary CHCl3 (chloroform) are virtually identical.

    Deuterated chloroform

  • The reaction can be used to transform acetyl groups into carboxyl groupsOH) or to produce chloroform (CHCl3), bromoform (CHBr3), or iodoform (CHI3).

    Haloform reaction

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.