The act of administering chloroform to someone, typically to make them unconscious or insensible to pain.
Present participle of chloroform, derived from the noun chloroform + -ing suffix. This verb form became common in medical and literary contexts during the Victorian era.
The practice of chloroforming became so notorious in Victorian literature that it became a cliché of crime fiction—villains would sneak up behind victims with a chloroform-soaked cloth to knock them out instantly, though real chloroform actually takes several minutes to work.
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