Etymology Dictionary

ANODYNE,  a drug to allay pain.  (L.,—Gk.)   Used by Bp. Taylor, Epistle Dedicatory to Serm. to the Irish Parl., 1661 (R.)   Cotgrave gives 'remedes anodins, medicines which, by procuring sleep, take from a patient all sence of pain.'   But the spelling anodyne is Latin.—Low Lat. anodynus, a drug relieving pain; Ducange.—Gk. ἀνώδυνος, adj. free from pain; whence φάρμακον ἀνώδυνον, a drug to relieve pain.—Gk. ἀνα-, negative prefix; and ὀδύνη, pain.   [Curtius, i. 381, shews that ἀνα-, corresponding to Zend ana-,and cognate with E. un-, is the full form of the prefix; and this explains the long o (w), produced by the coalescence of a and o.]   Curtius, i. 300, refers ὀδ-ύνη to the verb ἔδ-ειν, to eat, as if it were 'a gnawing;' rightly, as it seems to me.   See Eat.