How to Use opium in a Sentence

opium

noun
  • And opium is, of course, the drug of mercy.
    — Jane Ciabattari september 2, Literary Hub, 2 Sep. 2025
  • Afghanistan is also the world’s main source of opium and heroin.
    — Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2017
  • In a word, no, and not even heroin, opium, and methamphetamine can fill the gap.
    — Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 24 Aug. 2021
  • To top it off, the police had raided his apartment and found an opium pipe.
    — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 18 Oct. 2021
  • China fought the same war against the British opium trade for the same reasons.
    — WSJ, 12 July 2022
  • Not even heroin, opium, and methamphetamine will be able to solve the problem.
    — Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 24 Aug. 2021
  • Ancient Egyptians may have used opium a lot.
    — Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 12 Nov. 2025
  • Afghan opium is the source of much of the world’s heroin, and half of it comes from Helmand.
    — Washington Post, 23 Dec. 2017
  • One person had even been buried with a ceramic vessel and an opium pipe.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 29 Aug. 2017
  • Why is our morning shot of caffeine legal, but a nightcap of opium tea not?
    — Lucy Jakub, The New York Review of Books, 3 Sep. 2021
  • As a result, about the only thing the country does not import is opium.
    — Rod Nordland and Fahim Abed, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2018
  • Some money comes from the opium trade and drug dealing, or other crime such as smuggling.
    — Derek Hawkins, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Aug. 2021
  • The rural area produced the bulk of the country’s poppy crop, used to make opium.
    — Fox News, 14 May 2021
  • Some money comes from the opium trade and drug dealing, or other crimes such as smuggling.
    — Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2021
  • His mother, Chen Yuqing, worked as a maid for the owner of an opium den.
    — New York Times, 11 Nov. 2021
  • Weak people took drugs such as opium to escape; strong people took methamphetamine to feel even stronger.
    — Peter Andreas, Time, 7 Jan. 2020
  • Charles became an opium addict.
    — Kathryn Schulz, New Yorker, 9 Feb. 2026
  • On the dance floor, guests ingest opium with lolling tongues, then variously pop their booties and walk a quadrille.
    — Troy Patterson, The New Yorker, 31 Oct. 2019
  • Hundreds of foreign troops were killed in the province, which is also a major opium hub.
    — USA TODAY, 13 Aug. 2021
  • The route is also key to global opium shipments coming out of Afghanistan.
    — Munir Ahmed and Jon Gambrell, USA TODAY, 18 Jan. 2024
  • Ruspoli had used opium for years, and Freud became part of his ritual.
    — Rebecca Mead, New Yorker, 8 Sep. 2025
  • What sounds like a zany idea dreamt up in an opium den could have dire repercussions for the future of our democracy.
    — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 9 Dec. 2021
  • For years, most of the harvest would be smuggled out in the form of bulky opium syrup that was refined in other countries.
    — Mujib Mashal, New York Times, 29 Oct. 2017
  • Afghanistan is the world's top cultivator of the poppy, which heroin and opium are produced from.
    — USA TODAY, 20 Aug. 2021
  • Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material used to make heroin.
    — CBS News, 14 Feb. 2018
  • Learn about the outlaws who were hanged at the courthouse and what went on in China Mary’s opium den, just for starters.
    — Roger Naylor, The Arizona Republic, 29 Sep. 2022
  • The Taliban, funded in large measure by the opium trade, now controls wide swaths of Afghanistan.
    — W.j. Hennigan, Time, 23 May 2018
  • To rebalance the trade deficit, British merchants sold opium to the Chinese.
    — Ro Khanna, Foreign Affairs, 20 Dec. 2022
  • Jerry would no longer have a job, nor his access to the opium that Errol supplied him for a chronic back injury.
    — Mandi Bierly, TVLine, 16 June 2024
  • What has him and other farmers in the region desperate is a huge drop in the prices that local drug gangs pay for a kilogram of opium paste.
    — Mark Stevenson, Fox News, 22 June 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'opium.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: