Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Heroin
/ˈhɛroʊɪn/noun
A highly addictive opioid made by acetylating morphine.
The Greek roots
ἥρως
hḗrōs
hero, demigod
Literally: “the heroic one”
Follow a root:ἥρως3 words
The story of the word
Bayer registered Heroin as a trademark in 1898 for diacetylmorphine and sold it over the counter as a cough medicine, advertised as a substitute for morphine that would not addict. The name comes from German heroisch, heroic, on the usual account because test subjects reported feeling heroic. Greek ἥρως did not mean a brave man; it meant a dead man of more than mortal power who received offerings at his tomb.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → German → English
- First recorded
- 1898
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
heroheroicheroism
In a sentence
The clinic prescribes methadone to patients coming off heroin.