| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| dope |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  d p |
| NOUN: | 1. Informal a. A narcotic, especially an addictive narcotic. b. Narcotics considered as a group. c. An illicit drug, especially marijuana. 2. A narcotic preparation used to stimulate a racehorse. 3. Informal A stupid person; a dolt. 4. Informal Factual information, especially of a private nature. 5. Chemistry An absorbent or adsorbent material used in certain manufacturing processes, such as the nitroglycerin used in making dynamite. 6. A type of lacquer formerly used to protect, waterproof, and tauten the cloth surfaces of airplane wings. 7. Chiefly Southern U.S. See cola1. 8. Lower Northern U.S. Syrup or sweet sauce poured on ice cream. | | VERB: | Inflected forms: doped, dop·ing, dopes
| | TRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. Informal a. To administer a narcotic to: was doped up for the operation. b. To add a narcotic to: They doped his drink before robbing him. 2. Informal To figure out (a puzzle, for example). 3. Informal To make a rough plan of: doped out our proposal on scratch paper. 4. Electronics To treat (a semiconductor) with a dopant. 5. To subject (an athlete) to blood doping. | | INTRANSITIVE VERB: | Informal To take narcotics. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Dutch doop, sauce, from doopen, to dip. | | OTHER FORMS: | dop er —NOUN
| | REGIONAL NOTE: | Before it came to mean “a narcotic or narcotics considered as a group,” dope was borrowed into English from the Dutch word doop, “sauce.” Throughout the 19th century it meant “gravy.” In the North Midland United States, particularly Ohio, dope is still heard as the term for a topping for ice cream, such as syrup or a chocolate or fruit sauce. In the South, particularly in South Carolina, dope means “a cola-flavored soft drink.” The term might be related to the Northern usage as a reference to the sweet syrup base of a cola drink. However, folk wisdom has it that dope recalls the inclusion of minute amounts of cocaine in the original Atlanta recipe for Coca-Cola, which was named after this exotic ingredient.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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