Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (drugs) to overdose (fatally or otherwise) on a given drug.

1965		H. Huncke ‘Cat and His Girl’ in Huncke’s Journal (1998) 68: We were using junk, and twice she ODed and I thought I’d lost her.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 73: Poor Opal had OD’d before she could keep her promise.
1987		in Delacoste & Alexander Sex Work (1988) 30: She O.D’ed on junk.
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 105: Lockie’d OD’d on Panadol.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] [I] got fuck-all buzz, but I knew lads who had nearly OD-ed on one of them [i.e. Diconal].
1998		C. Fleming High Concept 259: ‘He OD’d,’ one source reported. ‘He’s in the hospital or something’.
1999		Guardian Rev. 24 July 3: He OD-ed on drugs before his appeal was heard.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 165: The geezer OD’d, happens all the time round ’ere.
2007		T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 104: I think I OD’d again. We’re driving down the back of a big black snake.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 401: They insisted that ah might OD or something.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 321: [F]ated to expire in a gutter after ODing.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] ‘[Y]ou didn’t give a flying fuck about the families of people who’ve ODed on the smack you launder’.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Sunset’ in Broken 180: Boone [...] found him OD’d on his floor.

2. (drugs) to give someone a drug overdose.

1989		(con. 1940s) Courtwright & Des Jarlais Addicts Who Survived 51: See, the grade of heroin they sold back then would probably O.D. a couple of people out here now.
2000		M.E. Dassad ‘Chickenhawk’ at www.cultdeadcow.com 🌐 I’d only od’d a kid once after Big James, the black pimp I knew from cruising Port Authority, put me onto the trick of doping up the kids to get them nice and docile.

3. a fig. synon. in non-drug contexts: to act excessively, without restraint, to be greedy.

1970		Time 31 Aug. 51: I’m worried that the commission is close to oh-deeing.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 138: Wino Walter Curran, my best friend, had been warning me for years of the danger of o.d.’ing on German Romanticism.
1998		J. Hoskison Inside 54: A chance for the inmates to OD on Mars bars.
2005		B. Coleman Rakim Told Me 208: ‘We were ODing on [the echo button], using it all over the place’ .
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘You look green [...] You O.D. on pussy?’.