bromide

noun

Etymology: From brom- + -ide. First used in the sense “dull person” by American artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist Gelett Burgess. Figurative sense ("platitude") by extending the medicating sense through the metaphor of pacifying or placating.

1. A binary compound of bromine and some other element or radical.
2. A binary compound of bromine and some other element or radical.
3. The anionic form of a bromine atom.

   ““How fortunate Buddha, Mahomed, and Shakespeare were that their kind relations and doctors did not cure them of their ecstasy and their inspiration,” said Kovrin. “If Mahomed had taken bromide for his nerves, had worked only two hours out of the twenty-four, and had drunk milk, that remarkable man would have left no more trace after him than his dog. […]””

4. A dull person with conventional thoughts.

   “My adviser at college was a bromide who had not had an original thought in years.”

   “The bromide conforms to everything sanctioned by the majority, and may be depended upon to be trite, banal, and arbitrary.”

5. A platitude.

   “We hoped the speech would include reassurances, but instead it was merely one bromide after another.”

   “No organicist metaphor, no irrelevant bromide that "we are all part of one another," must be permitted to obscure this basic fact.”

6. A dose of bromide taken as a sedative, or to reduce sexual appetite.
7. A print made on bromide paper.