Standard Lemma guide

morphine

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈmɔː.fiːn/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • General-American: /ˈmɔɹˌfin/
  • Australian: /ˈmoː.fiːn/
  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • CMU ARPABET: M AO1 R F IY0 N Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A crystalline alkaloid (4,5-epoxy-17-methyl-7,8-didehydromorphinan-3,6-diol), extracted from opium, the salts of which are soluble in water and are used as analgesics, anaesthetics and sedatives; it is one of a group of morphine alkaloids.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

Topics: biochemistry, biology, chemistry, medicine, microbiology, natural-sciences, pharmacology, physical-sciences, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

an alkaloid narcotic drug extracted from opium; a powerful, habit-forming narcotic used to relieve pain

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: morphia

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: analgesic, anodyne, painkiller, pain pill, opiate

Narrower terms: apomorphine

History

Etymology

Etymology tree Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ) Ancient Greek -εύς (-eús) Ancient Greek Μορφεύς (Morpheús) Proto-Indo-European *-nós Proto-Indo-European *-iHnos Proto-Italic *-īnos Latin -īnus French -in Proto-Indo-European *-h2 Proto-Indo-European *-eh2 Proto-Italic *-ā Latin -am Old French -e French -e French -ine French morphinebor. German Morphinbor. English morphine Borrowed from French morphine or German Morphin, from Ancient Greek Μορφεύς (Morpheús, “the god and personification of dreams”).

Across languages

Translations

46 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Arabic: مُورْفِين (murfīn) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Asturian: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Basque: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Bulgarian: морфин (morfin) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Catalan: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Chinese Cantonese: 嗎啡 /吗啡 (maa1 fe1) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Gan Chinese: 嗎啡 /吗啡 ('ma3 fi1) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Hakka Chinese: 嗎啡 /吗啡 (mà-fî/mò-fî) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Chinese: 嗎啡 /吗啡 — crystalline alkaloid
  • Chinese: 吗啡 (mô͘-hui) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Chinese Mandarin: 嗎啡 /吗啡 (mǎfēi) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Czech: morfin — crystalline alkaloid
  • Czech: morfium — crystalline alkaloid
  • Danish: morfin — crystalline alkaloid
  • Esperanto: morfino — crystalline alkaloid
  • Estonian: morfiin — crystalline alkaloid
  • Faroese: morfin — crystalline alkaloid
  • Finnish: morfiini — crystalline alkaloid
  • French: morphine — crystalline alkaloid
  • Galician: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • German: Morphin — crystalline alkaloid
  • German: Morphium — crystalline alkaloid
  • Hungarian: morfin — crystalline alkaloid
  • Icelandic: morfín — crystalline alkaloid
  • Ido: morfino — crystalline alkaloid
  • Indonesian: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Italian: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Japanese: モルヒネ (moruhine) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Japanese: モルフィン (morufin) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Japanese: モヒ (mohi) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Kazakh: морфин (morfin) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Khmer: ម័រហ្វីន (mɔəfiin) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Korean: 모르핀 (moreupin) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Malay: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Norwegian Bokmål: morfin — crystalline alkaloid
  • Norwegian Nynorsk: morfin — crystalline alkaloid
  • Occitan: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Polish: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Portuguese: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Romanian: morfină — crystalline alkaloid
  • Russian: мо́рфий (mórfij) — crystalline alkaloid
  • Spanish: morfina — crystalline alkaloid
  • Swedish: morfin — crystalline alkaloid
  • Thai: มอร์ฟีน — crystalline alkaloid
  • Turkish: morfin — crystalline alkaloid
  • Vietnamese: mocfin — crystalline alkaloid