a. Obs. [Erroneous form of SOMNIFEROUS, after soporiferous.] Soporific.
1590. Barrough, Meth. Physick, I. xv. (1639), 24. Give him to drink water wherein poppy or Henbane seed hath been sodden, or some somnoriferous compound. Ibid., II. x. 88. Sometime minister sirupes of Poppy, and other somnoriferous medicines.
So Somnorific a.
1865. ‘Annie Thomas,’ On Guard, ii. 8/1. The first scene opened on a somnorific, sultry summer afternoon in London.
1880. G. A. Townsend, Tales Chesapeake, 196. Andrew Waples … went to sleep in the somnorific air of the Springs.
