• (British, America) IPA: /dɹʌɡ/, [dɹʌɡ], [d̠͡ɹ̠˔ʷʌɡ]

drug (plural drugs)

1. (pharmacology) A substance used to treat an illness, relieve a symptom, or modify a chemical process in the body for a specific purpose.

   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.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 2”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     whence merchants bring their spicy drugs

2. A psychoactive substance, especially one which is illegal and addictive, ingested for recreational use, such as cocaine.
   • 1971, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Harper Perennial 2005 edition, page 3:

     We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

   • March 1991, unknown student, "Antihero opinion", SPIN, page 70 ↗

     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.

   • 2005, Thomas Brent Andrews, The Pot Plan: Louie B. Stumblin and the War on Drugs, Chronic Discontent Books, ISBN 0976705605, page 19 ↗

     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.

3. Anything, such as a substance, emotion or action, to which one is addicted.
   • 2005, Jack Haas, Om, Baby!: a Pilgrimage to the Eternal Self, page 8

     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 […]

   • 2010, Kesha Rose Sebert (Ke$ha), with Pebe Sebert and Joshua Coleman (Ammo), Your Love is My Drug
4. Any commodity that lies on hand, or is not salable; an article of slow sale, or in no demand.

   • But sermons are mere drugs.

   • And virtue shall a drug become.

See Thesaurus:pharmaceutical, Thesaurus:recreational drug

• French: drogue
• German: Droge
• Spanish: droga, fármaco

• French: drogue
• German: Droge, Rauschgift, Rauschmittel, Betäubungsmittel (officialese)
• Italian: droga, stupefacente
• Portuguese: droga, narcótico
• Russian: нарко́тик
• Spanish: droga, narcótico

drug (drugs, present participle drugging; past and past participle drugged)

1. (transitive) To administer intoxicating drugs to, generally without the recipient's knowledge or consent.

   She suddenly felt strange, and only then realized she'd been drugged.

2. (transitive) To add intoxicating drugs to with the intention of drugging someone.

   She suddenly felt strange. She realized her drink must have been drugged.

3. (intransitive) To prescribe or administer drugs or medicines.

• French: droguer
• Spanish: drogar

• Italian: drogare

1. (dialect) Simple past tense and past participle of drag

   You look like someone drug you behind a horse for half a mile.

   • 1961 Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron

     […] 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.

drug (plural drugs)

1. (obsolete) A drudge.
   • c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act 4, scene 3]:

     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