drug

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

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (UK):

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• Rhymes: -ʌɡ

From Middle English drogge (“medicine”), 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”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewgʰ- (“to strengthen; become hard or solid”), from *dʰer- (“to hold, hold fast, support”). Cognate with English dry, Dutch droog (“dry”), German trocken (“dry”).

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], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     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

   We took drugs and partied all night.

   They're on drugs.

   She used to be a drug addict.

   • 1971, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Harper Perennial, published 2005, 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, “A Pleasant Discourse between the Two Parsons and the Bookseller, […]”, in The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. […], volume I, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book I, page 117:

     […] Sermons are mere Drugs. The Trade is ſo vaſtly ſtocked vvith them, that really unleſs they come out vvith the Name of VVhitfield [i.e, George Whitefield] or VVeſtley [John Wesley], or ſome other ſuch great Man, as a Biſhop, or thoſe ſort of People, I don't care to touch, […]

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.”

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; reprinted Menston, Yorkshire: The Scolar Press, 1970, →OCLC, (please specify the GB page), (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     Past all the doses of your drugging doctors

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

drug

1. (dialectal) simple past and past participle of drag

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

   look what the cat drug in

   • 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.

   • 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.

   • 2009 August 13, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic):

     It's about time you drug it home, Jeff!

• 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.

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, [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

Borrowed from English drug.

• IPA^(key): /drʏɡ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: drug

drug m (plural drugs)

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

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *drȗgъ. First attested in the fifteenth century.

• IPA^(key): (10^th–15^th CE) /druːk/
• IPA^(key): (15^th CE) /druk/

drug m animacy unattested

1. (attested in Lesser Poland) friend

   Synonym: przyjaciel

   Antonym: wróg

   • 1930 [c. 1455], “Tob”, in Ludwik Bernacki, editor, Biblia królowej Zofii (Biblia szaroszpatacka)‎^[1], 7, 7:

     Bødz tobye poszegnanye, sinu moy myly, bo gesz dobrego druga a czsnego møza sin (boni et optimi viri filius es)

     [Bądź tobie pożegnanie, synu moj miły, bo jeś dobrego druga a csnego męża syn (boni et optimi viri filius es)]

   • 1907 [c. 1470], Jakub Parkoszowic, edited by Jan Łoś, Traktat o ortografii polskiej‎^[2], Żurawica, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Krakow, page 401:

     Omnes... vocales modo longantur, modo patulo breviantur. Ex quarum longacione et breviacione diversus consurgit sensus diccionum... Exemplum de u: druga, druug

     [Omnes... vocales modo longantur, modo patulo breviantur. Ex quarum longacione et breviacione diversus consurgit sensus diccionum... Exemplum de u: druga, drug]

• Polish: drug

• B. Sieradzka-Baziur, Ewa Deptuchowa, Joanna Duska, Mariusz Frodyma, Beata Hejmo, Dorota Janeczko, Katarzyna Jasińska, Krystyna Kajtoch, Joanna Kozioł, Marian Kucała, Dorota Mika, Gabriela Niemiec, Urszula Poprawska, Elżbieta Supranowicz, Ludwika Szelachowska-Winiarzowa, Zofia Wanicowa, Piotr Szpor, Bartłomiej Borek, editors (2011–2015), “drug”, in Słownik pojęciowy języka staropolskiego (in Polish), Kraków: IJP PAN, →ISBN

Borrowed from Serbo-Croatian druga.^[1]

drug m (plural drugi)

1. pole, stick

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

• IPA^(key): /drûːɡ/

drȗg m (Cyrillic spelling дру̑г)

1. (Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro) friend

   Synonyms: prijatelj, drugar, (slang, Croatia) frend

2. (dated) comrade (commonly used in parts of Former Yugoslavia among coworkers or friends)

   Synonym: drugar

• drugàrica
• drúga
• drùžica

• “drug”, in Hrvatski jezični portal (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2024

• IPA^(key): /drúːk/

drȗg (not comparable)

1. other, another, different

• drúgi

• “drug”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU (in Slovene), 2014–2024

From Russian друг (drug, “(male) friend”).

drug

1. paramour (illicit lover)
2. lover