Drug

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /dɹʌɡ/, dɹʌɡ, d͡ʒɹʌɡ
• Rhymes: -ʌɡ

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 wontedly 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").

Full definition of drug

Noun

1. (pharmacology) A substance used to treat an illness, relieve a symptom, or modify a chemical process in the body for a specific purpose.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.
• Miltonwhence merchants bring their spicy drugs
2. A psychoactive substance, especially one which is illegal and addictive, ingested for recreational use, such as cocaine.
• 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 0976705605, 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.
• FieldingBut sermons are mere drugs.
• DrydenAnd virtue shall a drug become.

Usage notes

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

Synonyms

Derived terms

Verb

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.

Germanic ablaut formation, cognate with Dutch droeg, German trug, Swedish drog, Old English drōg.

Verb

1. drug

   (past 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 1603580417), 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.

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 word.

Noun

1. (obsolete) A drudge.