A good friend and I were tossing around some words recently and she mentioned the word paregoric. Though the word is not commonly used outside of the medical profession anymore, I think it should be. Not only is paregoric a pleasant sounding word, it is also far less embarrassing to ask a pharmacist for a paregoric than an antidiarrheal.
Paregoric is defined in medical dictionaries as: A camphorated tincture of opium, taken internally for the relief of diarrhea and intestinal pain.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, a paregoric was originally a "medicine that soothes pain," 1704, from adj. (1684) "soothing," from Late Latin paregoricus, from Greek paregorikos "soothing, encouraging, consoling," from paregorein "speak soothingly to," from paregoros "consoling," from para- "beside" + root of agoreuein "speak in public," from agora "public assembly."
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