DIBENZAZEPINE

any member of a class of chemical compounds (including the drugs imipramine and desipramine) introduced into medicine in the 1960s as antidepressant drugs. Imipramine was the first tricyclic (three-ringed) antidepressant introduced, and several other dibenzazepines and dibenzazepine derivatives (as amitriptyline, desipramine, nortriptyline, and protriptyline) followed. They are usually administered orally, also sometimes by injection. During the 1960s they became widely prescribed.