# drug

Pronunciation: say "DRUG" /dɹʌɡ/

## Noun

1. A substance given to treat disease or relieve symptoms, or to alter some chemical process of the body to a particular end.
   - Simple: A substance, like medicine, that treats an illness or eases a symptom in the body.
   - _This drug reduces inflammation within a few hours._
   - _Pharmacists must check whether two prescribed drugs interact dangerously._
2. A mind-altering substance taken for recreation, especially one that is illegal and addictive, such as cocaine.
   - Simple: A substance like cocaine, taken for pleasure because it changes how the mind works. Many are illegal and hard to quit.
   - _Cocaine is a powerful drug that many countries have banned._
   - _Customs officers seized a large shipment of illegal drugs at the border._
4. Anything (a substance, emotion, or action) to which a person becomes addicted.
   - Simple: Something a person feels they cannot stop wanting or doing, like a habit they crave.
   - _Social media is a drug for many teenagers, hard to put down._
   - _Gambling had become his drug, feeding a craving he couldn't satisfy._
7. A commodity that sits unsold because there is little or no demand for it.
   - Simple: Goods that no one wants to buy and just sit there unsold.
   - _When gas prices spiked, large SUVs became a drug on the market, and dealers cut prices to move them._
   - _The farmer planted twice as many pumpkins as usual, only to find them a drug on the market by October._

## Verb

3. To give someone a drug, or secretly add one to their food or drink, usually without their knowledge or consent, to make them sleepy or unconscious.
   - Simple: To secretly give someone a drug, or put one in their food or drink, to make them sleepy.
   - _The captors tried to drug the prisoner to keep him quiet._
   - _He suspected a rival had drugged him before the match._
6. Dialectal past tense and past participle of drag, chiefly Southern US, used where standard English has dragged. *(dialectal, Southern US)* — simple past and past participle of drag
   - Simple: Past tense and past participle of drag. Some dialects use it instead of dragged.
   - _She drug the heavy crate across the barn floor._
   - _We had drug the boat up onto the sand before the storm._

## Verb

5. To use intoxicating drugs. *(rare)*
   - Simple: To take drugs that change how the mind feels.

## Noun

8. A person who toils at hard, menial work; a drudge. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A person made to do hard, boring work for very little reward.

## Other meanings

- (noun) Short form of drugstore: a shop selling medicines along with toiletries, snacks, and other small goods.
- (verb) To dispense medicines or drugs to patients, whether by prescribing them or by giving them directly.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–5, 7** — Middle English drogge ("medicine") came from Middle French drogue ("tincture, pharmaceutical product"). The French word possibly came from droge in Middle Dutch or Middle Low German, in the phrase droge vate ("dry barrels"), with the word for "dry" misread as naming the contents, usually dried herbs. Droge goes back through Old Dutch and Proto-Germanic to a root meaning "dry, hard," and it is related to English dry and German trocken.
**Meaning 6** — A Germanic ablaut formation. If old, it is a doublet of 'drew', from Middle English 'drug', from Old English 'drōg' and Proto-Germanic *drōg (compare Dutch 'droeg', German 'trug'). If secondary, it was probably formed by analogy with 'dug'.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/drug (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).