designer drug
noun
Simple meaning
A psychoactive drug deliberately synthesized to avoid anti-drug laws.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihzynerdruhgSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪˈzaɪnɚdˈɹʌɡ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A psychoactive drug deliberately synthesized to avoid anti-drug laws; mimics the effects of a banned drug; law was revised in 1986 to ban designer drugs
A drug specifically developed to replace an illegal recreational drug, in order to circumvent existing drug laws, usually by modifying its molecular structure.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A psychoactive drug deliberately synthesized to avoid anti-drug laws; mimics the effects of a banned drug; law was revised in 1986 to ban designer drugs
Used this way, designer drug is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.