Etimology
From Middle English drogge (“medicine”), from Old French drogue, drocque (“tincture, pharmaceutical product”), from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German droge, as in droge vate (“dry vats, dry barrels”), mistaking droge for the contents, which were usually dried herbs, plants or wares. Droge comes from Middle Dutch drōghe (“dry”), from Old Dutch drōgi (“dry”), from Proto-Germanic *draugiz (“dry, hard”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewgʰ- (“to strengthen; become hard or solid”), from *dʰer- (“to hold, hold fast, support”). Cognate with English dry, Dutch droog (“dry”), German trocken (“dry”).
noun
drug (plural drugs)
(pharmacology) A substance used to treat an illness, relieve a symptom, or modify a chemical process in the body for a specific purpose.
A psychoactive substance, especially one which is illegal and addictive, ingested for recreational use, such as cocaine.
Anything, such as a substance, emotion, or action, to which one is addicted.
Any commodity that lies on hand, or is not salable; an article of slow sale, or in no demand.
(Canada, US, informal) Short for drugstore.
Examples
Synonyms: see Thesaurus:pharmaceutical
Aspirin is a drug that reduces pain, acts against inflammation and lowers body temperature.
The revenues from both brand-name drugs and generic drugs have increased.
whence merchants bring their spicy drugs
Synonyms: see Thesaurus:recreational drug
take drugs
she used to be a drug addict
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.
You have a twelve-year-old kid being told from the time he's like five years old that all drugs are bad, they're going to screw you up, don't try them. Just say no. Then they try pot.
The only thing working against the poor Drug Abuse Resistance Officer is high-school students. ... He'd offer his simple lesson: Drugs are bad, people who use drugs are bad, and abstinence is the only answer.
Inspiration is my drug. Such things as spirituality, booze, travel, psychedelics, contemplation, music, dance, laughter, wilderness, and ribaldry — these have simply been the different forms of the drug of inspiration for which I have had great need […]
Fear was my drug of choice. I thrived on scary movies, ghost stories and rollercoasters. I dreamed of playing the last girl left alive in a slasher film — the one who screams herself hoarse as she discovers her friends' bodies one by one.
The truth is...eating is my drug. When I am upset, I eat...when I am sad, I eat...when I am happy, I eat.
And virtue shall a drug become.
[…] Sermons are mere Drugs. The Trade is ſo vaſtly ſtocked vvith them, that really unleſs they come out vvith the Name of VVhitfield [i.e, George Whitefield] or VVeſtley [John Wesley], or ſome other ſuch great Man, as a Biſhop, or thoſe ſort of People, I don't care to touch, […]
“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.”
verb
drug (third-person singular simple present drugs, present participle drugging, simple past and past participle drugged)
(transitive) To administer intoxicating drugs to, generally without the recipient's knowledge or consent.
(transitive) To add intoxicating drugs to with the intention of drugging someone.
(intransitive) To prescribe or administer drugs or medicines.
Examples
She suddenly felt strange, and only then realized she'd been drugged.
She suddenly felt strange. She realized her drink must have been drugged.
Past all the doses of your drugging doctors
Etimology
Germanic ablaut formation. If old, a doublet of drew, from Middle English drug, drog, drugh, drogh, from Old English drōg, from Proto-Germanic *drōg; compare Dutch droeg, German trug, Swedish drog. If secondary, probably formed by analogy with hang.
verb
drug
(dialectal) simple past and past participle of drag
Examples
You look like someone drug you behind a horse for half a mile.
look what the cat drug in
[…] their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.
When Blackburn called, I drug the telephone cord twenty feet out of the office and sat on the cord while I talked with him.
It's about time you drug it home, Jeff!
noun
drug (plural drugs)
(obsolete) A drudge.
Examples
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