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Glite Dictionary
chloral hydrate

chloral hydrate

1 9.5
Medicine that makes you sleep but can upset the stomach and make you dependent
  • noun
  • /ˈklɔrəl ˈhaɪdreɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : hidrato de cloral
  • Animals were anesthetized with chloral hydrate (400 mg/kg i.p.) and given supplemental doses of anesthetic as needed.
  • anesthetized with chloral hydrate

Examples

  • At 24 hours following surgery, the rats were again anesthetized with 5% chloral hydrate (300 mg/kg) by intraperitoneal injection.

    Academic text (2018)

  • The doctor prescribed chloral hydrate to help the patient sleep through the night.

  • After administering chloral hydrate, the patient quickly fell into a deep sleep.

  • The use of chloral hydrate in this study was intended to observe its effects as a sedative.

Surface Forms

chloral hydrate singular
chloral hydrates plural

Morphology

chloral + hydrate

The term denotes the hydrate (water-bound) form of the chemical chloral, so a learner who knows 'chloral' is a sedative chemical and 'hydrate' is a crystalline substance with bound water can infer it is a crystalline sedative compound. This noun+noun chemical naming pattern is compositional and follows predictable morphological logic, making the meaning derivable from the constituents.

Etymology

Chloral hydrate gets its name from chemistry: it is the water ('hydrate') form of a chemical that contains chlorine called 'chloral'. These clear crystals were used as a drug to help people 'sleep', so the name points directly to the substance now used as a sedative.