Word.ws English Dictionary

opium of the people

opium of the people phrase: used to describe religion and compare it to opium.

Phrase

opium of the people

  1. (figuratively) Used to describe religion and compare it to opium.
    Synonyms:
    opium of the masses
  2. (figuratively) Used to describe anything seen as a distraction.

Synonyms of opium of the people

Origin of opium of the people

From a paraphrased statement from Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right by German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883).

Questions about opium of the people

What does opium of the people mean?
Opium of the people means used to describe religion and compare it to opium.
What part of speech is opium of the people?
Opium of the people is a phrase.

Words near opium of the people in the dictionary

  1. opium alkaloids
  2. opium den
  3. opium dens
  4. opium lamp
  5. opium lamps
  6. opium of the people
  7. opium pillow
  8. opium pillows
  9. opium pipe
  10. opium pipes
  11. opium poppies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: opium of the people (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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