dope

English

Etymology

From Dutch doop (“thick dipping sauce”), from Dutch dopen (“to dip”), from Middle Dutch dopen, from Old Dutch *dōpen, from Frankish *daupijan, from Proto-Germanic *daupijaną.

“Doop” in the sense “narcotic drug” ultimately refers to viscous opium juice, the drug of choice of the ancient Greeks; “insider information” perhaps from knowing which horse had been doped in a race. Sense of "stupid person" perhaps following from the drug sense (i.e. relating to those intoxicated on opium), compare dope up. Related to English dip and German taufen.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key):
• (US) IPA^(key):

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊp

Noun

dope (countable and uncountable, plural dopes)

1. (uncountable) Any viscous liquid or paste, such as a lubricant, used in preparing a surface.
   • 1977, Robert O. Parmley, Standard Handbook of Fastening and Joining, New York: McGraw-Hill, →ISBN, page 247:

     Use a good pipe dope on the NPT threads. When applying pipe dope do not put any on the first two threads from the end. Always put dope on the male thread—never on the female thread.

2. (uncountable) An absorbent material used to hold a liquid.
3. (uncountable, aeronautics) Any varnish used to coat a part, such as an airplane wing or a hot-air balloon in order to waterproof, strengthen, etc.
4. (uncountable, slang) Any of various recreational substances:
   • 1968, Roger Waters (lyrics and music), “Incarceration Of A Flower Child”, performed by Marianne Faithfull, published 1999:

     Do you remember me? / How we used to be / Helpless and happy and blind? / Sunk without hope / In a haze of good dope / And cheap wine?

   1. An opiate, now particularly heroin.
      • 1900, “Gifford Arthur Nelson”, in The Naughty-Naughtian, page 118:

        If you are at all bright, don't be a grind. Grinding may make a second-hand genius of you (for all the real things are dead), and if you become a genius you will be sure to smoke dope or swallow laudanum. They all did it.

      • a. 1911, David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise‎:

        But she went her way. Not until she accompanied a girl to an opium joint to discover whether dope had the merits claimed for it as a deadener of pain and a producer of happiness—not until then did Freddie come in person.

      • 1953, Tom Lehrer, “The Old Dope Peddler”, in Songs by Tom Lehrer, Pantheon, published 1981, page 18:

        Here's a cure for all your troubles / Here's an end to all distress / It's the old dope peddler / With his powdered happiness

      • 2006, Noire , Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 50:

        We watched as he got his works and squirted water out first, then stuck the tip of the needle into the dope and sucked it up before finding a vein and sticking it into his arm.

   2. Marijuana.
      • 1981 September 26, Berkeley Breathed, Bloom County (comic):

        (Senator): Well good! Good! This is a fine batch of corn you have!
        (Farmer): 'Taint corn. It's dope.

      • 1983 March 28, “Smokin'”, in The Breeze‎, James Madison University, Readers' Forum, page 19:

        Some people say that dope kills brain cells, but I can't figure out how they found that out. I mean, how do you tell if a brain cell is dead and how do you tell what killed it? I've probably wasted a lot more brain cells through booze than through dope.

      • 1996, Stephen King, Desperation:

        She had gotten pregnant while stoned, had undoubtedly decided to marry Roger Finney while stoned, and Peter knew for a fact that she had left Reed (carrying a one-point-forget-it grade average) because there was too much dope floating around and she just couldn’t say no to it.

5. (uncountable, slang) Information, usually from an inside source, originally in horse racing and other sports.

   Synonym: scoop

   What's the latest dope on the stock market?

   • 1917 October 25, Ernest Hemingway, “To Clarence Hemingway”, in Sandra Spanier, Robert W. Trogdon, editors, The letters of Ernest Hemingway, volume 1, Cambridge University Press, published 2011, →ISBN, page 55:

     I got thru the lines and talked with the Captain and got all the Dope.

   • 2000 August 7, Robert Newman, “Performers of the world unite”, in The Guardian‎:

     Same with Michael Moore. When the people's champ gives us the dope on corporate bosses and sweatshop kings, he never presents their greed as some kind of deplorable personal trait.

   • 2013, Deborah Solomon, American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 198:

     “Everyone seems less excited about the war here than out there. When I do get the dope on the poster situation, I will let you know.” He and Forsythe were itching to contribute to the war effort by designing recruitment posters.

6. (uncountable, firearms) Ballistic data on previously fired rounds, used to calculate the required hold over a target.
7. (countable, slang) A stupid person.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:fool

   • 1902, “The Barrister's Shakespeare”, in The Green Bag, volume XIV, page 525:

     The reasons why this verification is made by her and not by the defendant is because he is a dope and a fat-head and hasn't sense enough to do it himself.

   • 1990 February 11, Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes (comic):

     You call that steering? We almost got killed! My fault? Yeah, step over here and say that, you stripey dope! That's right, I'm talking to you!

8. (US, Ohio) Dessert topping.
9. (Appalachia) A soft drink. Otherwise known as soda or pop.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

dope (third-person singular simple present dopes, present participle doping, simple past and past participle doped)

1. (transitive, slang) To affect with drugs.

   Synonym: administer

   • 1915, Jack London, chapter 2, in The Star Rover‎:

     Cecil Winwood accepted the test. He claimed that he could dope the guards the night of the break. "Talk is cheap," said Long Bill Hodge. "What we want is the goods. Dope one of the guards to-night."

   • 1929, Horatio Sawyer Earle, The Autobiography of “By Gum” Earle, page 105:

     Now, suppose another veterinarian should come along with another medicine, named “Goine;” and that a quart of it would make a horse go twice as fast, and you should dope the horse with both medicines […]

2. (transitive) To treat with dope (lubricant, etc.).
3. (transitive, electronics) To add a dopant such as arsenic to (a pure semiconductor such as silicon).
   • 2011, Cathleen Shamieh, Gordon McComb, Electronics For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 113:

     Another way to dope semiconductors is to use materials like boron, in which each atom has one fewer valence electron than does a sillicon atom.

4. (intransitive, now chiefly sports) To use drugs; especially, to use prohibited performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in sporting competitions.
   • 2015, Vassilis Barkoukis, Lambros Lazuras, Haralambos Tsorbatzoudis, The Psychology of Doping in Sport‎, Routledge, →ISBN:

     The more experienced cyclists, who doped or used to dope, transmitted the culture of doping to the younger cyclists, teaching them doping methods and suggesting which substances to use.

5. (slang, transitive, dated) To judge or guess; to predict the result of.

Derived terms

• dope up

Descendants

Translations

Adjective

dope (comparative doper, superlative dopest)

1. (slang) Amazing; cool.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:awesome

   That party was dope!

   • 1990, SPIN, volume 5, number 10, page 74:

     The dope conceptual beauty of the Jungle Brothers is the upful spin they put on black consciousness music, showing that being pro-black can be as much about hot fun in the summertime as gearing up for the next time.

   • 2015, Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff, Straight Outta Compton (motion picture), spoken by Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins):

     That was dope, E. That shit was dope, man!

Translations

References

Anagrams

• deop, depo, op-ed, oped, p.o.'ed, p.o.ed, pedo, pedo-, pode, poed

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

dope

1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of dopen

French

Etymology

From English dope.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dop | dɔp/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

dope f (plural dopes)

1. (informal) illicit drug, narcotic

Verb

dope

1. inflection of doper:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

dope

1. inflection of dopen:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. singular imperative
   3. first/third-person singular subjunctive I

Ido

Etymology

From dop +‎ -e.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdo.pe/

Adverb

dope

1. back, behind, aback

Portuguese

Verb

dope

1. inflection of dopar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdope/
• Rhymes: -ope
• Syllabification: do‧pe

Verb

dope

1. inflection of dopar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative