drug definition

English drug definition

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /dɹʌɡ/, [d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷʌɡ]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌɡ

Etymology 1

From Middle English drogge (“medicine”), from Middle French drogue (“cure, pharmaceutical product”), from Old French drogue, drocque (“tincture, pharmaceutical product”), from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German droge, as in droge vate (“dry vats, dry barrels”), mistaking droge for the contents, which were usually dried herbs, plants or wares. Droge comes from Middle Dutch drōghe (“dry”), from Old Dutch drōgi (“dry”), from Proto-Germanic *draugiz (“dry, hard”). Cognate with English dry, Dutch droog (“dry”), German trocken (“dry”).

Noun

drug (plural drugs)

1. (pharmacology) A substance used to treat an illness, relieve a symptom, or modify a chemical process in the body for a specific purpose.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:pharmaceutical

   Aspirin is a drug that reduces pain, acts against inflammation and lowers body temperature.

   The revenues from both brand-name drugs and generic drugs have increased.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

     whence merchants bring their spicy drugs

2. A psychoactive substance, especially one which is illegal and addictive, ingested for recreational use, such as cocaine.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:recreational drug

   take drugs

   she used to be a drug addict

   • 1971, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Harper Perennial 2005 edition, page 3:

     We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

   • March 1991, unknown student, "Antihero opinion", SPIN, page 70

     You have a twelve-year-old kid being told from the time he's like five years old that all drugs are bad, they're going to screw you up, don't try them. Just say no. Then they try pot.

   • 2005, Thomas Brent Andrews, The Pot Plan: Louie B. Stumblin and the War on Drugs, Chronic Discontent Books, →ISBN, page 19

     The only thing working against the poor Drug Abuse Resistance Officer is high-school students. ... He'd offer his simple lesson: Drugs are bad, people who use drugs are bad, and abstinence is the only answer.

3. Anything, such as a substance, emotion, or action, to which one is addicted.
   • 2005, Jack Haas, Om, Baby!: a Pilgrimage to the Eternal Self, page 8

     Inspiration is my drug. Such things as spirituality, booze, travel, psychedelics, contemplation, music, dance, laughter, wilderness, and ribaldry — these have simply been the different forms of the drug of inspiration for which I have had great need […]

   • 2009, Niki Flynn, Dances with Werewolves, page 8:

     Fear was my drug of choice. I thrived on scary movies, ghost stories and rollercoasters. I dreamed of playing the last girl left alive in a slasher film — the one who screams herself hoarse as she discovers her friends' bodies one by one.

   • 2010, Kesha Rose Sebert (Ke$ha), with Pebe Sebert and Joshua Coleman (Ammo), Your Love is My Drug
   • 2011, Joslyn Shy, Introducing the Truth, page 5:

     The truth is...eating is my drug. When I am upset, I eat...when I am sad, I eat...when I am happy, I eat.

4. Any commodity that lies on hand, or is not salable; an article of slow sale, or in no demand.
   • 1685, John Dryden, Albion and Albanius

     And virtue shall a drug become.

   • 1742, Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews

     But sermons are mere drugs.

5. (Canada, US, informal) Short for drugstore.
   • 1980, Stephen King, The Mist

     “I’ll go this far,” I answered him. “We’ll try going over to the drug. You, me, Ollie if he wants to go, one or two others. Then we’ll talk it over again.”

Usage notes

• Adjectives often used with "drug": dangerous, illicit, illegal, psychoactive, generic, hard, veterinary, recreational

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

drug (third-person singular simple present drugs, present participle drugging, simple past and past participle drugged)

1. (transitive) To administer intoxicating drugs to, generally without the recipient's knowledge or consent.

   She suddenly felt strange, and only then realized she'd been drugged.

2. (transitive) To add intoxicating drugs to with the intention of drugging someone.

   She suddenly felt strange. She realized her drink must have been drugged.

3. (intransitive) To prescribe or administer drugs or medicines.
   • 1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, OCLC 1008120557; reprinted Menston, Yorkshire: The Scolar Press, 1970, OCLC 52009618, (please specify the page), (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     Past all the doses of your drugging doctors

Translations

Etymology 2

Germanic ablaut formation. If old, a doublet of drew, from Proto-Germanic *drōg; compare Dutch droeg, German trug, Swedish drog. If secondary, probably formed by analogy with hang.

Verb

drug

1. (dialect) simple past tense and past participle of drag

   You look like someone drug you behind a horse for half a mile.

   • 2005, Diane Wilson, An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, →ISBN, page 193:

     When Blackburn called, I drug the telephone cord twenty feet out of the office and sat on the cord while I talked with him.

   • 1961 Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron

     […] their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.

Usage notes

• Random House says that drug is "nonstandard" as the past tense of drag. Merriam-Webster once ruled that drug in this construction was "illiterate" but have since upgraded it to "dialect". The lexicographers of New World, American Heritage, and Oxford make no mention of this sense.

Etymology 3

Noun

drug (plural drugs)

1. (obsolete) A drudge.
   • c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, proceeded / The sweet degrees that this brief world affords / To such as may the passive drugs of it / Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself / In general riot

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Dutch drug definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English drug.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /drʏɡ/
• Hyphenation: drug

Noun

drug m (plural drugs)

1. (chiefly plural, which see) A recreational drug, psychoactive substance, especially when illegal and addictive.

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Old Polish drug definition

Alternative forms

• druch

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *drȗgъ, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *draugás, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrowgʰ-os, from *dʰrewgʰ-.

Noun

drug m

1. friend

   Synonym: przyjaciel

   Antonym: wróg

   Bądź tobie pożegnanie, synu moj miły, bo jeś dobrego druga a csnego męża syn.

   (please add an English translation of this quote)

Related terms

• (nouns) drużba, drużyna
• (adjectives) drugi, drużny

Descendants

• Polish: druh (literary)

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Romanian drug definition

Etymology

From Serbo-Croatian drug.

Noun

drug m (plural drugi)

1. pole, stick

Declension

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Serbo-Croatian drug definition

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *drugъ, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *draugás, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewgʰ-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /drûːɡ/

Noun

drȗg m (Cyrillic spelling дру̑г)

1. (Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro) friend
2. (dated) comrade (commonly used in parts of Former Yugoslavia among coworkers or friends)

Declension

Synonyms

• prijatelj
• drugar
• frend (slang, Croatia)

Derived terms

Related terms

• drugàrica
• drúga
• drùžica

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Slovene drug definition

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /drúːk/

Adjective

drȗg (not comparable)

1. other, another, different

Inflection

Hard
	masculine	feminine	neuter
nom. sing.	drúg	drúga	drúgo
singular
	masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	drúg ind drúgi def	drúga	drúgo
accusative	nominativeinan or genitiveanim	drúgo	drúgo
genitive	drúgega	drúge	drúgega
dative	drúgemu	drúgi	drúgemu
locative	drúgem	drúgi	drúgem
instrumental	drúgim	drúgo	drúgim
dual
	masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	drúga	drúgi	drúgi
accusative	drúga	drúgi	drúgi
genitive	drúgih	drúgih	drúgih
dative	drúgima	drúgima	drúgima
locative	drúgih	drúgih	drúgih
instrumental	drúgima	drúgima	drúgima
plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	drúgi	drúge	drúga
accusative	drúge	drúge	drúga
genitive	drúgih	drúgih	drúgih
dative	drúgim	drúgim	drúgim
locative	drúgih	drúgih	drúgih
instrumental	drúgimi	drúgimi	drúgimi

See also

• drúgi

Further reading

• “drug”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran

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Westrobothnian drug definition

Alternative forms

• dru
• dröuw
• dryg

Etymology

From Old Norse drjúgr, from Proto-Germanic *dreugaz.

Adjective

drug (comparative drugänä, superlative drugest)

1. lasting
2. haughty

Related terms

• dryj
• drögt
• drögnä