Soporate

[Grogie]

To lay or put to sleep. ''The mother gently and lovingly soporated her child.''

[ClaireM]

I have a suspicion that 'soporate' comes from the same mixing bowl as 'verbalize'.............I actually overheard one doting mother of a year-old boy boasting to another, lesser mortal, mother: "My little Edward verbalised today!"....... by which I take it that he achieved something along the lines of "dadadadadadada" as opposed to his usual whining, and probably does not refer to his suddenly saying "Mother, I want a biscuit".

I expect that soporate might be found in medical literature: it does go with soporific, and I think it implies that you have dosed the little blighter with poppy-juice or some such in order to achieve a soporated state. Just laying him down in his cot seldom results in instant sleep: extra measures are often called for by the infant, including extra feed, cocoa, stories, and generally keeping the adult in the bedroom for at least an hour. Adults can probably achieve being inebriated and soporated both at the same time, but obviously not when they are in charge of infants.

ClaireM in Liverpool

[gailr]

A friend used to say, rock them to sleep. Just a little rock.

[Stargzer]

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
Soporate

\Sop"o*rate\, v. t. [L. soporatus, p. p. or soporare to put to sleep, fr. sopor a heavy sleep.] To lay or put to sleep; to stupefy. [Obs.] --Cudworth.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Wordsmyth:

sopor

Syllables: so-por

Part of Speech noun
Pronunciation so pEr
Definition 1. an abnormally deep sleep; stupor; lethargy.
Crossref. Syn. stupor

Related Words anesthesia