Word of the Day: Soporific

Soporific \sop-uh-RIF-ik; soh-puh-\, adjective:

1. Causing sleep; tending to cause sleep.
2. Of, relating to, or characterized by sleepiness or lethargy.

noun:
1. A medicine, drug, plant, or other agent that has the quality of inducing sleep; a narcotic.

Examples:

Hamilton's voice droned on, hypnotic, soporific, the gloom beyond the windows like the backdrop of a waking dream.
-- T. Coraghessan Boyle, Riven Rock

They were almost an hour behind in their daily schedule, and both women looked tired after a soporific afternoon of three executive meetings.
-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, News of a Kidnapping

Happily, these three lullaby books offer the sort of comforting bedtime soporific that has delivered generations of children, young and older, into deep, safe slumber.
-- Lisa Shea, New York Times, January 30, 1994