dopes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of dope.

   The coach scolded the dopes who showed up late to every practice.

   A few harmless dopes kept asking the same question over and over.

   Note

   A plural that most meanings of its singular resist. Dope as a lubricant, an absorbent, or a varnish for an airplane wing or balloon is a mass noun: a workshop needs more dope, not more dopes. Only the slang drug senses, an opiate such as heroin or marijuana, can also be counted. So dopes for substances sounds like street talk, while dopes for people is the everyday insult.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of dope.

   He dopes the racehorse in secret, hoping the testers never catch on.

   A technician dopes the silicon wafer to alter how it conducts electricity.

   Note

   The object tells you which trade is speaking. A trainer who dopes a horse is drugging it, a mechanic who dopes a part is coating it, and an engineer who dopes silicon is adding a dopant such as arsenic. With no object, as in a cyclist who dopes, it means taking banned performance-enhancing drugs. An older slang use, in which someone dopes the result of a race, means predicting it and now sounds dated.

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