noun

• A liquid made by treating acetaldehyde with acid, used medicinally as a sedative, hypnotic, and anticonvulsant.

  A cyclic trimer of acetaldehyde; chemical formula: (CH₃CHO)₃

  ‘Quinaldine can be made by reacting aniline, hydrochloric acid, and paraldehyde.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘His first wife Vivienne had been prescribed Hoffman's anodyne and paraldehyde to treat her nervous condition, two anesthetics that exude a strong scent of ether.’
  • ‘A young woman had a fit, and all the paraldehyde and other Western intervention we tried would not stop it.’
  • ‘Parenteral paraldehyde may be indicated in the emergency treatment of status epilepticus and of convulsions induced by tetanus or eclampsia, when other agents are not effective.’