Valium

//ˈvæl.i.əm// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The drug diazepam. countable, uncountable

    "Mothers little helpers were pills—Miltown, amphetamine, barbiturates, Librium, and Valium were the most popular and widely available in the fifties and early sixties—that were used to keep women in their place, to make them comfortable in a setting that should have been uncomfortable, to encourage them to focus on tasks that did not matter."

  2. 2
    a tranquilizer (trade name Valium) used to relieve anxiety and relax muscles; acts by enhancing the inhibitory actions of the neurotransmitter GABA; can also be used as an anticonvulsant drug in cases of nerve agent poisoning wordnet
  3. 3
    A Valium pill. countable

Synonyms

All synonyms
diazepamtranquilizer

Example

More examples

"Mothers little helpers were pills—Miltown, amphetamine, barbiturates, Librium, and Valium were the most popular and widely available in the fifties and early sixties—that were used to keep women in their place, to make them comfortable in a setting that should have been uncomfortable, to encourage them to focus on tasks that did not matter."

Etymology

A marketing coinage.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.