heroin
Pluralheroins
Often confused with heroine
- 1A strongly addictive drug made from morphine, itself derived from opium, that produces intense euphoria and is outlawed as a narcotic across most of the world.
The clinic offers treatment to people addicted to heroin and other opioids.
Investigators warned that heroin sold in the city was being laced with fentanyl.
Note
The name began as a German trademark in the 1890s, built on Greek heros, "hero", with the suffix -in. It is said to have been chosen to suggest a quick, sweeping effect in the drug's first medical uses, as a painkiller and a cough suppressant, long before it became the street narcotic of Lou Reed's and James Brown's songs.
- 2Obsolete form of heroine.
Note
An old spelling of heroine, the admired woman or the leading female character, written without its final e; Delarivier Manley's Memoirs of Europe (1710) still uses it. The spelling has fallen out of use, and today it reads only as the opium drug, so a woman of courage or a story's lead is always a heroine.
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Origin
From German Heroin, originally a trademark from the 1890s, formed from Ancient Greek ἥρως (hḗrōs, "hero") and the suffix -in ("-ine"). It is said to have been named to suggest its quick, sweeping effect as a painkiller and cough medicine, though it has also been explained as a reference to the heroic school of medicine.