vitamin P
n.— «Considering her own history of depression—Vincent had been taking “Vitamin P” (better known as Prozac) for years—she anticipated her mental health might suffer.» —“Norah Vincent spent a year disguised as a man for her last book but the experience put her in a mental institution…cue follow-up” by Chitra Ramaswamy Scotland on Sunday (Glasgow) Jan 25, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...
A psychiatric home health worker is curious about the use of nuthouse to mean “a mental health facility.” This term goes back to the turn of the 20th century. The word nuts itself once had an extremely positive connotation, referring to...
I’ve heard the expression “Vitamin P” (= Prozac) since 1998 or so, mostly from Lilly pharmaceutical sales reps. Can you imagine the status a drug thought of as almost like a vitamin would achieve, especially for the company’s marketing department? I suspect that may have been where the reference originated as well. But of course that is pure conjecture…