Ambien

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

Ambien (plural Ambiens)

1. Trade name of zolpidem, a medication most widely known as a treatment for insomnia.
   • 2009, “Empire State of Mind”, in The Blueprint 3, performed by Jay-Z:

     The city never sleeps / Better slip you an Ambien

   • 2010, Patricia Morrisroe, Wide Awake: A Memoir of Insomnia, page 119:

     But Eckleburg is powerless against her, so I take an Ambien, and then, at 2 AM, the New York City Department of Transportation decides it's the perfect time to rip up the street.

   • 2011, Jonathan Handel, Hollywood on Strike!: An Industry at War in the Internet Age, page 389:

     Silicon Valley is not going to suddenly take an Ambien and stop innovating.

   • 2013 June 4, Dwight Garner, “A Literary Mind, Under the Spell of Drugs and a MacBook”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     They ingest Ambien, Seroquel, LSD, Adderall, Oxycodone, cocaine, Flexeril, Percocet, psilocybin mushrooms and codeine.

   • 2017 February 22, Madison Malone Kircher, “‘Things You Did on Ambien’ Is Peak Reddit”, in Intelligencer‎, New York, N.Y.: New York Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 20 October 2018:

     This week’s find: a subreddit devoted to all the wonderfully deranged things people have done while under the influence of Ambien sleeping pills, or while experiencing a visit from the Ambien walrus, as redditors are known to call it.

   • 2018 May 30, Christine Hauser, “Roseanne Barr’s Ambien Defense Is Disputed: ‘Racism Is Not a Known Side Effect’”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Roseanne Barr said she was “Ambien tweeting” when she wrote racist remarks on Twitter […] . But on Wednesday the makers of Ambien, the sleep aid, were having none of it. […] “While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.”

Derived terms

• Ambien defense
• Ambien walrus

Anagrams

• benami, bimane