Other forms: sedatives
A sedative is a drug that calms and makes you sleepy. Give a sedative, under sedation, a mild sedative.
It calms rather than sends to sleep, which is the difference from an anaesthetic, though a large enough dose does both. The Latin means to settle, from the verb to sit, which is where sedate and sediment come from.
1nounsedativeA drug that calms and makes you sleepy.
“The vet gave the nervous horse a sedative before the long journey.”
sedative is a drug.
Medieval Latin sedativus comes from sedare, to settle, from sedere, to sit.
Medieval Latin
sēdātīvus
Anglo-Norman
sedatif
Middle English
sedatif
English, today
sedative
Middle English sedatif, from Anglo-Norman sedatif, from Medieval Latin sēdātīvus, which itself likely influenced the modern spelling. by surface analysis, sedate + -ive.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA