drugs
noun · verb
Form of drug , plural of drug.
Simple meaning
A substance that is used as a medicine or narcotic.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
druhgzIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɹʌɡz
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
plural of drug
A substance that is used as a medicine or narcotic
plural of drug
A psychoactive substance, especially one which is illegal and addictive, ingested for recreational use, such as cocaine.
plural of drug
Anything, such as a substance, emotion, or action, to which one is addicted.
plural of drugpharmacology
A substance used to treat an illness, relieve a symptom, or modify a chemical process in the body for a specific purpose.
verb
third-person singular of drug
To administer intoxicating drugs to, generally without the recipient's knowledge or consent.
third-person singular of drug
To add intoxicating drugs to with the intention of drugging someone.
third-person singular of drug
To prescribe or administer drugs or medicines.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A substance that is used as a medicine or narcotic
Used this way, drugs is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- 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
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist 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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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A substance that is used as a medicine or narcotic.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The commission of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations that is concerned with drug traffic.
Use recreational drugs.
A terrorist organization in South Africa formed in 1996 to fight drug lords.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A person who controls an organization dealing in illegal drugs.
Seizure of illegal drugs by the police.
An illicit cartel formed to control the production and distribution of narcotic drugs.
An unlicensed dealer in illegal drugs.
A person who controls an organization dealing in illegal drugs.
An unlicensed dealer in illegal drugs.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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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.