dover's powder

1. 1.

   a medicinal powder made essentially of ipecac and opium; formerly used to relieve pain and induce perspiration

   Broaderpowder

Questions about dover's powder

What does dover's powder mean?

dover's powder means "a medicinal powder made essentially of ipecac and opium; formerly used to relieve pain and induce perspiration".

Is dover's powder a common word?

dover's powder is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.