doping

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The use of drugs to improve athletic performance, usually in breach of the rules of the sport.

   Several cyclists were disqualified after doping was uncovered during the race.

   Doping scandals have badly damaged the reputation of professional cycling.

   Note

   Sport's own term for chemical cheating, and one that often works as a modifier: doping scandals, doping cases, and the anti-doping testing programs built to catch it. It is mostly uncountable but can be counted when individual cases are meant. The matching verb needs no object, because athletes simply dope. That sets it apart from the semiconductor sense, where something is always doped.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The addition of small quantities of an element, called a dopant, to a semiconductor in order to change its electrical characteristics.

   Careful doping of the wafer determines how well it conducts.

   Manufacturers adjust the doping to fine-tune each transistor's behavior.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The applying of a protective coating called dope onto a surface such as aircraft fabric, or the hardened coating thus produced.

   The doping gave the linen surface a taut, weather-resistant finish.

   Each layer of doping was left to dry before the next was brushed on.

   Similarcoating, varnish, lacquer

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle of dope.

   Investigators accused the cyclist of doping throughout his career.

   The lab technician was doping the silicon wafers when the power failed.

   Note

   A verb form that does double duty. In a progressive tense it can stand alone, as when an athlete is said to be doping, or take an object, as when a technician is doping silicon. As a gerund it names the act itself, and there it overlaps with the noun of the same spelling, which can be counted (dopings). An older slang use, doping a result in the sense of guessing it, is now dated.

Showing meanings only. Show all 4