Seconal

/ˈsɛkəˌnɔl/

Seconal noun: a barbiturate drug used as a sedative and hypnotic, a trade name of secobarbital.

Noun

Seconal (countable and uncountable, plural Seconals)

A barbiturate drug used as a sedative and hypnotic, a trade name of secobarbital.
- Nearly every pharmaceutical house has its own brands, sold in tablets, solutions or brightly-colored capsules, on which its “detail men” keep doctors informed. Probably the most popular successors to Veronal are Seconal (“red birds” to the bootleg trade) and Nembutal (“yellow jackets”).1952 October 13, Richard L. Williams, “‘To sleep: perchance…’”, in Life, volume 33, number 15, page 110
- In spite of the seconal he was eaten up by his nerves. His face was covered with sweat.1953, Raymond Chandler, chapter 29, in The Long Goodbye, New York: Ballantine, published 1971

Each night she looked at the bottle of Seconals with affection.1966, Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the Dolls, page 227:
Seconal is the commercial name of the barbiturate quinalbarbitone.2001 October 14, Jason Burke, “Death of a princess”, in The Observer, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...

plural	Seconals

Blend of secondary + allyl; origin 1930s.

What does Seconal mean?: Seconal means a barbiturate drug used as a sedative and hypnotic, a trade name of secobarbital.
How do you use Seconal in a sentence?: Each night she looked at the bottle of Seconals with affection.
What part of speech is Seconal?: Seconal is a noun.
How do you pronounce Seconal?: Seconal is pronounced /ˈsɛkəˌnɔl/.
What is the plural of Seconal?: The plural of Seconal is Seconals.

Adapted from Wiktionary: Seconal (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “Seconal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/seconal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.