Adolophine

English

Etymology

From the drug's trade name Dolophine (itself from Latin dolor, pain), by confusion with the name of Adolf Hitler. (The drug was developed in Nazi Germany.)

Noun

Adolophine (uncountable)

1. Apocryphal former name for the drug methadone.
   • 1985, Journal of Drug Issues, volume 15, page 187:

     Nazi scientists created Adolophine (named for Hitler). After the war, the "A" was dropped. The new name was dolophine. The chemical fact, however, is that dolophine is methadone.

   • 2003, Gillian Tober, John Strang, Methadone Matters:

     Although it has been widely asserted that one of the first trade names given to methadone - Dolophine - was a derivation of Adolf (and even that it was called Adolophine in Germany - the A being dropped after the war), in fact the name Dolophine was created for the drug as a trade name after the war by the Eli-Lilly pharmaceutical company in America.

   • 2009, Andrew Morton, Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography:

     For instance, how many politicians could have stated unchallenged, as Tom did during a TV interview on Entertainment Tonight in 2005, that psychiatry was a "Nazi science" and that methadone, a drug used to fight heroin addiction, was originally called Adolophine after Adolf Hitler?

Anagrams

• anodophile