doper
Pluraldopers
Pluraldopers
- 1A derogatory term for a person who habitually uses recreational drugs for pleasure.
Local gossip painted the musician as a hopeless doper.
He resented being called a doper just for relaxing on weekends.
Similardruggie, stoner, pothead, user
Note
Here the scorn lands on habit rather than cheating. It belongs with druggie and stoner, and it often travels in disreputable company: Anthony Cormier's 2006 HeraldTribune.com story has a preacher's daughter "falling in with dopers and felons." The word can also be played for laughs. Gene Seymour's Newsday review of Clerks II (2006) calls Jay and Silent Bob "dopey dopers," pairing it with its near-rhyme.
- 2A derogatory term for a competitor who uses performance-enhancing substances to gain an edge, especially illegally.
Anti-doping officials suspended the doper for two seasons.
Rumors that the champion was a doper haunted his career.
Note
Built from the verb dope with the agent suffix -er, this word is an accusation rather than a neutral label. Matt Seaton, writing in the Guardian in 2006 under the headline Tour de farce, pictured testers forever "in a race with the dopers" and playing catch-up. Because it presumes guilt, careful writers keep it for settled cases. A sporting context is what separates it from the recreational-drug meaning.
- 3Comparative form of dope.
Critics agreed the remix was doper than the original track.
Few cars in the lot looked doper than the customized lowrider.
Note
The slang adjective dope, "amazing; cool," takes the ordinary -er ending, and the result collides with the agent noun built on the verb. The two are formed independently, so context does the sorting: a track can be doper than the original, but a doper is a person. The phrasal comparative more dope is also available, and it sidesteps the clash entirely.
Less common meaning
- 4A worker employed to apply dope solution, a protective lacquer, to the fabric surfaces of aircraft during manufacture.
The aircraft works employed a dozen dopers to finish each canvas-covered fuselage.
A skilled doper laid down even coats that shrank the linen drum-tight.
Note
Nothing derogatory clings to this word: the dope here is a varnish for aircraft fabric, not a drug, and the doper was a hand on the factory floor. Because the label is dated, the word belongs to older accounts of aircraft building. A modern reader is likely to hear the drug-user meaning first, so present-day prose usually needs to explain it.
Showing meanings only.
doper is a form of dope
dope, adjective: Amazing or excellent; very cool. Full entry
- Spelling
- dope → doper: add -r
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Origins
Formed from the verb "dope" with the suffix "-er".
Formed from the adjective "dope" with the suffix "-er".