drug
Pluraldrugs
Pluraldrugs
- 1A substance, like medicine, that treats an illness or eases a symptom in the body.
Like a tool that fixes one exact problem inside the body.
The doctor gave her a new drug to lower her blood pressure.
Some drugs work better when taken with food.
UsagePeople usually say medicine for what a doctor gives you. Drugs can mean illegal ones.
Similarmedicine, medication, pharmaceutical, medicament
Note
- 2
- 3To secretly give someone a drug, or put one in their food or drink, to make them sleepy.
The robbers planned to drug the guard and slip past him.
She woke confused, sure that someone had drugged her.
UsageSay someone was drugged, or someone drugged a drink.
Similarsedate, tranquilize
- 4
Less common meanings
- 5To take drugs that change how the mind feels.
To soften the blow from working in such unfamiliar territory, I drank and drugged at the end of the day.
1990, Cindy Lanane, “With The Confidence Other Women Have Given Me”Here, drugged means took drugs that change how the mind feels.Note
- 6Past tense and past participle of drag. Some dialects use it instead of dragged.
He drug the old sofa out to the curb.
They drug their feet all the way home.
UsageIn standard English, say dragged.
Note
- 7Goods that no one wants to buy and just sit there unsold.
Like a toy left on the shelf because no child wants to buy it.
After the crash, big houses were a drug on the market.
Old DVD players are a drug on the market now.
UsageSay a drug on the market.
Note
- 8A person made to do hard, boring work for very little reward.
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
c. 1605, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”Here, drugs means drudges, people doing hard, lowly work.Note
- 9Short form of drugstore. It means the shop where you buy medicines and other small goods.
“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.”
1980, Stephen King, The Mist - 10To give out medicines as a treatment.
Past all the doses of your drugging doctors
1610, Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist
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Origins
It comes from an old French word 'drogue' meaning a pharmaceutical product, which likely came from a Dutch or Low German word meaning 'dry'. The name probably came from the dried herbs stored in 'dry barrels'.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- Drug comes from an earlier French word drogue meaning a pharmaceutical product. en.wiktionary.org
- The French word likely derives from a Dutch or Low German word meaning dry. de.wikipedia.org
- A proposed explanation connects the name with dried medicinal herbs stored in dry barrels. en.wikipedia.org
This is a Germanic vowel-change form. It may be an old relative of 'drew', or it may have been formed later by copying the pattern of 'hang'.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- The form involves Germanic vowel change, or ablaut. en.wiktionary.org
- An inherited relationship with 'drew' is one proposed origin. en.wiktionary.org
- Later formation by analogy with hang/hung is another proposed explanation. edinburghuniversitypress.com