Green’s Dictionary of Slang

coke n.1

(drugs)

1. (also coc, coco) cocaine.

[US]Paducah Sun (KY) 12 Apr. 1/7: ‘Coke’ must go [...] The demoralizing habit of using cocaine, or what is known among the fiends as ‘coke’.
[UK]R.S. Baker Following the Colour Line 47: They buy the ‘coke’ in the form of a powder and snuff it up the nose.
[UK]A.B. Reeve Constance Dunlap 296: ‘Sleighbells’ seemed to have disposed of all the ‘coke’ he had brought with him. As the last packet went, he rose slowly and shuffled out.
[UK](con. 1914) ‘Leda Burke’ Dope-Darling 69: Shall I take some coc?
[UK]C.B. Poultney Mrs. ’Arris 169: ‘Dope!’ I wails as I shoot by [...] ‘Coco!’ I gurgles, whizzing past.
[UK]‘Sapper’ Jim Maitland (1953) 59: I don’t go in for opium or coke or any other rotten dope.
[Aus]Burrowa News (NSW) 24 June 7/4: ‘Angie,’ is the vernacular expression for ‘angel’s food,’ or ‘coke,’ which is cocaine. Taken in the powder form, one packet usually contains enough for four ‘sniffs,’ and costs 10/-.
[US]C.B. Yorke ‘Snowbound’ in Gangster Stories Oct. n.p.: I picked up the bindles of coke.
[US]‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 39: From then on he used to indulge in coke (as cocaine is always called).
[UK]V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 87: His little packets of coke forged links between Soho and Mayfair.
[US]‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 26 Apr. 9/7: Solid, now, bloke; forget your ‘coke’. Put out that ‘roach’ and dig me.
[UK]A. Petry Narrows 293: She must have figured he was sniffing coke.
[UK]Oz 2 13/4: Heroin (£1 to £3 per grain) coke, meths (5/- an ampoule).
[US]S. King Stand (1990) 336: Old lags with gray in their beards and big coke-burned holes where their septa used to be.
[Aus]P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] Then there was the violence. And the coke. He was just barely in control.
[UK]Guardian Rev. 29 Oct. 22: A coke-sniffing medallion man who dances in his bath.
[UK]J. Joso Soothing Music for Stray Cats 64: Smoking cigarettes looks pretty cool, whereas shoving coke up yer snout, well, that’s just plain nasty.
[UK]K. Richards Life 5: There were plastic bags full of coke and grass, peyote and mescaline.
[Aus]P. Doyle (con. 1969-1973) Big Whatever 25: People weren’t so interested in powder drugs, especially coke.
[Ire]L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 29: Birthdays passed, coke passed, crises passed.
[US]S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘The guy at the strip club had a nose full of coke’.
[US]D. Winslow ‘Sunset’ in Broken 177: Coke didn’t give him the rush it used to.
[Scot]A. Parks Bobby March Will Live Forever 242: Bobby sniffed [...] and let the coke run down his throat. Hit him immediately, the familiar burn, the rush of blood.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

[US]S.F. Call 27 Nov. 3/2: We found an 18 year old boy who was a victim of the ‘coke’ habit. He had a package of ‘snow’ in his pocket.
[Aus]New Call (Perth, WA) 17 Dec. 1/1: Most of them took to the ‘coke’ or ‘snow’ racket.
[US]C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 24: Wedged under a tiny headline between a one-ton coke bust and a double homicide.
[Aus]G. Disher Crosskill [ebook] He had coke and gambling habits.
[UK]J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 9: I didn’t leave school wanting to be a coke dealer.
[Aus]R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] ‘He was a small-time coke dealer’.
[US]A. Steinberg Running the Books 4: Gun-toting gangbangers and coke dealers.
[Aus]A. Nette Orphan Road 14: ‘Don’t worry, Gary, the coke is for down time only [...] I’m always clean when I work’.

3. a cocaine user.

H.W. Zorbaugh Gold Coast 123: Then there are the ‘cokes’, ‘snowbirds’ they call them, who will pawn everything they have for a shot [HDAS].
[US]B. Appel Brain Guy (1937) 257: He was a coke, he’d noticed that when he was smacking his jaw. The punches under the eyes.
[UK] (ref. to 1918) L. Duncan Over the Wall 21: Hopheads or cokes – the cocaine addicts on the snow.

4. any injectable opiate drug, usu. morphine or heroin.

[US]A.N. Depew Gunner Depew 77: ‘Gimme a deck of the stuff. Dope out the coke, Doc, dope out the old coke. Tell me, do I croak, Doc?’ .
[US]F. Packard White Moll 175: ‘I got to have me bit of coke,’ Pinkie answered, with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘An’, anyway, I’m no pipe-hitter.’.

5. crack cocaine.

[US]Kurtis Blow ‘If I Ruled the World’ 🎵 You know he tried to escape and smoked the coke on the pipe.
[US]T. Williams Crackhouse 75: The taste of the coke when you’re smoking it enhances the rush of the high.
[US]Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 532: DeAndre was on the pipe, at one point going through an entire half ounce of coke [...] in a single evening.
[US]ONDCP Street Terms 6: Coke — [...] Crack Cocaine.

6. see cokie n. (2)

In compounds

coke-blunt (n.) [blunt n.3 (2)]

a mixture of hashish/marijuana and cocaine, made into a cigarette when rolled in a tobacco leaf, taken from the wrapper of a Phillies Blunt cigar.

‘Is The Source Brand No Longer In Demand’ on UrbanExposé 🌐 They gave him a 40, a coke blunt, and let him squeeze the ass of the local chicken... he was hooked.
coke bug (n.)

(drugs) a non-existent insect which a cocaine addict believes is crawling on their skin.

[UK]K. Richards Life 397: He was into coke bugs [...] People had been calling him mad for weeks because he was conviced that he was infected by bugs.
[US]J. Stahl Happy Mutant Baby Pills 64: On cocaine they crawl back and burrow under your skin. Coke bugs!
coke-dropper (n.)

(Aus. drugs) a cocaine dealer.

[Aus]Sun. Mail (Brisbane) 13 Nov. 20/7: Cocaine peddlers are termed ‘angie-droppers’ amongst the elect, or less frequently ‘coke-droppers’ .
coke-eater (n.)

a cocaine addict or user.

[US]J. Archibald ‘Dying to See Willie’ in Popular Detective Mar. 🌐 Fats McGlone on the radio wouldn’t swallow that coke-eater’s dream.
coke fiend (n.) (also coco fiend) [fiend n. (1)/SE fiend; later use tends to be ironic]

(drugs) a cocaine user.

[US]S.F. Examiner 13 May 11/7: [headline] dope and coke fiends / The Lost Wretches Who Cannot Live Without Morphine or Cocaine.
[US]Paducah Sun (KY) 12 Apr. 1/7: All coke fiends will be arrested and made to tell where they procured their coke.
[US]Spokane Press (WA) 7 Aug. 2/3: Thomas [...] has become a missionary among ther ‘coke’ fiends of the Tenderloin.
[US]I.L. Nascher Wretches of Povertyville 181: Many of the opium fiends are also ‘coke’ fiends or cocaine habitues. This drug is snuffed up the nose and produces a mild stimulation, followed by intense depression.
[UK]A.B. Reeve Constance Dunlap 295: ‘Why, they call him Sleighbells Charley,’ he replied, ‘a coke fiend.’ ‘Which means a cocaine fiend, I suppose?’ she queried.
[Can]R. Service ‘The Co-Co Fiend’ in Ballads of a Bohemian (1978) 498: The CoCo-Fiend [...] Here’s where Heav’n begins: Cocaine! Cocaine!
[US](con. 1900) Journal Amer. Instit. of Criminal Law and Criminology X Jan. 62–70: One can tell a hop-head by his eyes. A coke fiend is spotted by his quick turns and active movements. A morphinist has a brittle complexion. A smoker has a yellowish tinge.
[Aus]Truth (Brisbane) 22 June 12/5: ‘[T]he doper is forced to increase the dose constantly,-until only the pure crystals, termed by the ‘coke’ fiends ‘snow,’ will satisfy’.
[UK]N. Lucas London and its Criminals 254: The cocaine habit is spreading, a peculiar characteristic of the ‘coke’ fiend being an intense anxiety to pass on the vice.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[US]J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
[US]Mad mag. Jan. 37: You’re buying them [i.e. empty ideas] like coke fiends buy tissues.
[US]T. Dorsey Stingray Shuffle 133: The legitimate customers began mixing with the coke fiends in the book line.
coke-freak (n.) [-freak sfx]

(drugs) a regular usual of cocaine.

[US](con. 1985–90) P. Bourjois In Search of Respect 67: Instead of coke freaks, crackheads, and heroin junkies [...] it was alcoholics who were harassing patrons.
[SA]A. Lovejoy Acid Alex 212: The Jesus Coke Freak is here too [...] doing eight to ten for cocaine.
cokehead (n.) [-head sfx (4)]

(drugs) a regular cocaine user; also as adj.; thus coke-headed adj.

[US]N. Anderson Hobo 67: Not infrequently ‘coke heads’ or ‘snow-birds’ are found among the hobo workers.
Clarence ‘Pine Top’ Smith ‘Big Boy, they Can’t Do That’ 🎵 When I run and get clipped, by a coke-headed dip, / At the time you ain’t got no dough.
[US]M. Harris ‘Facing the Mob’ in Gangland Stories Feb. 🌐 It goes down damn hard to have every cheap mobsman in town razzing us for having a boss, that’ll let some coke-headed broad make him jump through a hoop.
[US]‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 146: It is known that a bunch of insane coke-heads and drug-users have inflicted brutal punishment.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[US]‘John Monahan’ [W.R. Burnett] Big Stan 122: ‘I’d like to see you in that tank with a bunch of filthy, stinking drunks and cokeheads. Don’t those guys ever wash?’.
[US]R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970).
[US]E. Torres Q&A 98: I don’t want these two coke heads near me.
[US]C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 18: Don’t for Christ’s sake hire midgets, or twits, or cokeheads, or petty criminals.
[Aus]R.G. Barratt ‘Racist Yes, Sexist Fine’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] Smackies gotta have a hit of heroin, cokeheads gotta have a line.
[US]L. Pettiway Workin’ It 93: People just sit around either nodding or bugging, you know, if they’re coke heads.
[US](con. 1986) G. Pelecanos Sweet Forever 32: Clay watched Karras go back and talk to his cokehead girl.
[UK]K. Sampson Powder 155: He was an unlikely cokehead, but he had a mission to be down with whatever was going on.
[Scot]C. Brookmyre Be My Enemy 98: That nasty cokehead brother of his.
[UK]J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 41: Cokeheads are liabilities [...] Dangerous! Madheads!
[US]G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 31: Word is that she is a cokehead and is giving up head and ass for cash.
[Ire]L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 221: Shakespeare made a cokehead suck his piss from a handful of bog roll.
[Scot]I. Welsh Dead Man’s Trousers 120: Where is that cokehead bum N-Sign.
[Ire]Breen & Conlon Hitmen 100: Eric and Keith [...] were cokeheads.
coke horrors (n.) [horrors, the n. (4)]

(drugs) paranoid hallucinogenic delusions occasioned by an excessive/long-term use of cocaine.

[US]W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 36: One morning you wake up and take a speed ball and feel black bugs under your skin. 1890 cops with black moustaches block the doors [...] Junkies march through the room singing the Moslem Funeral Song [...] It’s the coke horrors.
cokehound (n.) [-hound sfx]

(drugs) a cocaine user.

[US]R. Chandler ‘Goldfish’ in Red Wind (1946) 149: He’s a coke-hound and he talks in his sleep.
www.washingtonfreepress.org Jan.–Feb. #43 🌐 Following are excerpts from an unpublished interview between Irvine Welsh’s American stepbrother, Irwin, and Presidential candidate/accused cokehound George W. Bush, Jr.
www.thrillingdetective.com 🌐 Any fan of the mystery genre owes the old cokehound [i.e. Sherlock Holmes] a debt of gratitude.
coke nail (n.)

(drugs) the nail of a single finger that is allowed to grow disproportionately long and which can thus be used to scoop up cocaine for inhalation.

[US]T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 273: Like she wouldn’t hear from working girls about why their man had a stub where his coke nail used to be?
cokeover (n.) [play on SE hangover]

(drugs) the after-effects of a cocaine binge; also attrib.

[US](con. 1986) G. Pelecanos Sweet Forever 108: A sick, pale rider with an awful case of cokeover depression.
A. Sher Beside Myself 168: By the time I reached home I had a streaming nose and another of those thunderous depressions, cocaine’s version of a hangover – I called it a coke-over.
coke party (n.)

(drugs) a party at which the principal aim is to consume cocaine.

[US]F. Williams Hop-Heads 66: There’s always a coke party on down here after 1 and 2 in the morning.
[US]Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 52: Coke Party. – A gathering at which cocaine or some other drug furnishes the stimulation usually found in liquor.
coke squad (n.)

(US police/Und.) the Narcotics Squad.

[US]Marion Star (OH) 3 Apr. 17/1: The Narcotics Squad [...] the ‘Coke Squad’ as it is best known.
coke stare (n.) [SE stare; the rigid gaze that may overtake the more paranoid cocaine user]

(US black) the ‘evil eye’, a deliberately aggressive and unpleasant look.

[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 108: The evil eye, or the coke stare.
[US]R.C. Cruz Straight Outta Compton 14: Clive’s daddy shouted. he sent Clive a coke stare.
coke sweat (n.)

(drugs) sweat that indicates an excessive use of cocaine.

[US]G.P. Pelecanos Firing Offense 1: A poster of the mayor, a smiling portrait in debauchery, was taped to the window [...] The coke sweat had been dutifully airbrushed from the mayor's forehead.
[UK]A. Coombs Missing Husband [ebook] Traces of it [i.e. cocaine] frosted his nostrils, his eyes were huge and she could smell the rank coke sweat on his body.
coke-water (n.)

(US prison) cocaine dissolved in water.

[US]V.G. Burns Female Convict (1960) 131: She had been drinking ‘cokewater’ (cocaine dissolved in water) for several days.

In phrases

blow coke (v.)

(drugs) to inhale cocaine; thus coke-blower, a cocaine sniffer.

[US]G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 403: Drug addict [...] coke-blower.
[US](con. 1900s) J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 25: It was in reform school that I first heard of drug users, ‘coke blowers,’ [...] the boys who sniffed cocaine.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[US]Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 306: blow coke, blow snow. To take cocaine by sniffing it up the nostrils.
[US]J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
[US]B. Davidson Collura (1978) 182: Hey, man, you wanna blow some coke while we doin’ business.
[US]ONDCP Street Terms 3: Blow coke — To inhale cocaine.
coke up (v.)

1. (drugs) to take cocaine.

[US]R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 29: Red’s been coking up.
[US]G. Sikes 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 130: There was a BC party, everyone coked up, and he was sitting on the floor with this BC chick.

2. to consume any drug.

[US]M. Braly False Starts 278: You coke up on those devil drugs.