smack, n.² — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

smack n.²

also smeck, smock

[Yid. schmeck, to sniff; see also schmeck n.]

1. (drugs) heroin.

1938		D. Maurer ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in Lang. Und. (1981) 109/1: smeck or smack. A bindle of drugs, especially a card of opium.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
a.1955		‘Kitty Barrett’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 52: I was standing on the corner, just as fly as I could be, / Selling boss smack to every dope fiend I could see.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 61: Smack, smock, stuff, horse — they’re all heroin.
1962		(con. 1940s) H. Simmons Man Walking On Eggshells 155: Smack, that was junk you shot yourself with through a needle.
1971		D. Goines Dopefiend (1991) 27: He removed the dropper from his needle and refilled it with smack.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 14: Smack wasn’t economical.
1985		‘Thommo’ Dict. Aus. Swearing & Sex Sayings 121: SMACK — Heroin.
1988		Ice-T ‘I’m Your Pusher’ 🎵 Crack or smack will take you to a sure end.
1996		P. Temple Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] There’s about five hundred bucks worth of smack in his car.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] [I]t’s obvious this gear I’m after getting is more Shake ’n’ Vac than smack. I curse the bastard who cut it.
1998		Source Oct. 150: His catchy advertising slogan, ‘Crack’s wack! Smack’s back!’.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 35: smack n. Heroin.
1999		Observer Rev. 22 Aug. 4: She strayed back to smack a few times.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 479: Lovely little Margaret; heroin will kill her. Naffin maw certain — smack will kill her.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 170/2: smack n. heroin.
2007		J. Wambaugh Hollywood Station 25: Maybe she was shooting smack in her twat or someplace else he’d never look and the heroin was smoothing out all the ice she smoked?
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] Smack. Such an unattractive look.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 32: [M]ost of the ‘business’ in the East End – girls, smack, racketeering – went through Maitland.
2010		K. Richards Life 57: Music [...] was very like a drug. In fact a far bigger drug than smack. I could kick smack; I couldn’t kick music.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 34: The oldest women – the ones too far gone with booze or smack to operate on anything but instinct – were best avoided.
2016		Sun. Times (London) 16 Oct. 🌐 A flaky crook [...] who supplied the boxer with a lethally pure batch of smack.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] Malone’s crew has been watching the heroin mill [...] The Mexicans truck the smack up and deliver it to Diego Pena.
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 138: Is this actually happening? Our mother is asking us to score smack?
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 267: ‘New connections, new ways of doing things, making money. Smack’s only a part of it’.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Sunset’ in Broken 196: Terry, don’t do another shot. Terry, don’t shoot smack.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 200: Was it smack you were on or what?
2023		A. Nette Orphan Road 88: ‘I made some money and developed a nasty smack habit’.

2. adulterated cocaine.

1994

G. Smitherman Black Talk.

In derivatives

smackie (n.)

(Aus.) a heroin addict.

1991		R.G. Barratt ‘Racist Yes, Sexist Fine’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] Smackies gotta have a hit of heroin.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] Her pupils were pinned, like a smackie’s, but my guess was a truckload of prescription downers.

smackster (n.) [-ster sfx]

(US drugs) a heroin addict.

1995

J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 341: How could an AIDS-era smackster not love an album called Bleach?

In compounds

smack freak (n.) [-freak sfx]

(drugs) a heroin addict.

1967		Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic Pschedelic Drugs & Law 153: smack freak Someone who likes or is addicted to heroin.
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 154: At fifteen she got knocked up by a twenty-year-old ex-con smack freak.
1983		R. Price Breaks 307: I was a smack freak, a pill freak.
1986		R.G. Barrett Real Thing 52: Fuckin’ smack freaks.
1999		P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] Kelvin McCoy, reformed smack freak, unreformed drunk.
2009		L. Randall Manoi 200: ‘He1s a smack freak,’ he explained. ‘A smack freak?’ I asked back. ‘Yeah. He smokes heroin’.
2011		R. Ward Cactus Garden n.p.: A three-hundred-pound, Mexican-food-loving smack freak.

smack-head (n.) (also smackie) [-head sfx (4)]

(drugs) a heroin addict; also attrib.

1967		Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic Pschedelic Drugs & Law 153: smack head Someone who likes or is addicted to heroin.
1968		L. Wolf Voices from the Love Generation 278: head. Any drug user [...] smack head.
1972		N.Y. Times Book Rev. 23 July 17: [He] is warned of a smackhead migration to his state.
1973		Tharunka (Sydney) 8 Nov. 27/1: D.T. ‘Smackhead’ Pilgrim poured another schooner glass of Mascot International Terminal watered down slops all over his wrist.
1985		‘Thommo’ Dict. Aus. Swearing & Sex Sayings 121: SMACK HEAD — A person who takes, or is addicted to heroin.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 241: It was all too easy to blame the smack-heads or the buftie-boys at that time.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 231: A wouldn’t quite call Roger a smackhead, not at the moment like [...] but ee’s certainly startin t’talk like one — stupid junkie contempt for anythin except heroin.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 170/2: smackhead (also smackie) n. a heroin addict.
2005		Guardian Society 13 July 🌐 You give them a number and the smackheads know and then you say ‘pass that number to other people.’.
2010		Sun. Times 19 Dec. 21: [headline] My daily fix, Prof, is to stigmatise these smackheads.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 341: Marriott starts slavering on again, in that maundering, self-obsessed smackheid wey.
2015		J. Stahl OG Dad 167: But smackheadism is what I know.
2016		D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] ‘Said he knew some smackhead cray fishermen who’d do it’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 293: [O]piates really fuck your bowels. Smackheads never let on. Destroys the mystique.

smack pack (n.)

(Aus. drugs) a ‘starter kit’ of heroin, containing a portion of the drugs and the equipment for injection.

1992		New York Mag. 14 Sept. 37: Smack pack: A customized heroin bag.
1998		Canberra Times 8 Aug. 3: Children are offered ‘smack packs’ – a portion of heroin, syringe and starter kit for $5.
2002		A. Fuller Raising Real People 89: The price and purity of the heroin made the purchase of a ‘smack pack’ a convenient and cheap way to get high.

In phrases

smacked out (adj.) (also smacked back, smacked up)

1. (drugs) under the influence of heroin.

1978		P. Tauber Last Best Hope 420: I was probably running away or stoned or smacked out daydreaming.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 69: Dilaudid used to be delightful, but now I’ve got to be smacked-back for all the pain to go.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 79: Smacked Back To be high on heroin.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 328: They were obviously smacked out of their eyebrows.
1999		J. Ridley Everybody Smokes in Hell 11: Hopped up or something. Crack, blow, smacked up or something.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 153: Fucken smacked-out gobshite!
2000		Observer Mag. 25 Jan. 32: We were strung out, or smacked out.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Jungletown Jihad’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 334: He’s dinged with needle tracks, smug and smacked-back.
2007		W. Ellis Crooked Little Vein 7: The Fashion Channel. All those skeletal smacked-out girls.
2009		P. Temple Truth 181: You’re the smacked-out medico patches up these cunts.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 279: His eyes are pinned, he’s smacked-up.
2012		L. Redhead ‘Grassed’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] They’re even more smacked out than usual.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 267: ‘[S]he’s just another whoor. Smacked-out whoor now, good for nothing’.
2021		T. Swerdlow Straight Dope [ebook] [A] certain type of junkie girl when you ran into her all smacked back.

2. (US) as smacked, in general use, with no specific ref. to heroin, very intoxicated .

2016

The Cut (NY Times Mag.) Mar. 🌐 Smacked — Stoned, like really stoned.

talk smack (v.) [punning on words like shit n. (5a), heroin/shit n. (3h), nonsense, and junk n.¹ (7a), heroin/junk n.¹ (4), nonsense]

(US black/teen) to gossip maliciously; to speak aggressively; thus smack-talking, malicious gossip.

1979		B.M. Gordon Educational Life Histories 170: I tell them later, you know, get out of my face when they're talking smack to me.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.
1992		R.C. Cruz Straight Outta Compton 10: He kept talking smack, his story getting more and more depressing with each lie.
1999		Rosemary Jacobs in San Jose Mercury News 11 May n.p.: […] She was beaten up for talking so much smack about Eve.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 smack Definition: nonsense, untruthful or unjustified statements or accusations Example: Yo, why dat nigga be talkin’ smack ’bout my ass?
2000		W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 625: You talkin’ smack to me, girl? I said, you givin’ me static.
2004		Mad mag. Sept. 8: Matt did a fair amount of smack-talking about Letters mainstay Jim Hutchings.
2006		G. Pelecanos Night Gardener 201: Ronald and Richard losing as usual and talking smack about their opponents.
2016		T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] ‘They kept trying to get me to talk smack about you’.
2016		67 ‘Milly Rock’ 🎵 He was talkin smack ’til my guy blew out his back.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 101: The D-block mandem [...] talking smack in loud voices .
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 32: He could talk all kinds of smack, but [...] everything sounded like an invitation to a hot-oil massage.

smack n.2

In derivatives

In compounds

In phrases

smack n.²