Green’s Dictionary of Slang

dope n.1

[? SE daub, the axle grease used on wagons or Du. doop, sauce]

1. (US, also doup) sauce, gravy.

1809
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1960
[US]W. Irving Hist. N.Y. (1927) III iii 138: The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into mouthfuls, and swimming in doup or gravy .
[US]True Northerner (Paw Paw, MI) 19 Oct. 7/1: ‘Tell me — What in the name of sense is ‘dope?’ ‘Gravy, mister, gravy’.
[US]Lawrence Democrat (TN) 28 Sept. 3/2: Each member of the family was given a large slice of bread [...] thrust into a dish to receive a coat of dope — gravy — and soon devoured.
[US]S.E. White Mountains (2008) 115: The batter is rather thin, is poured into the piping hot greased pan, ‘flipped’ when brown on one side, and eaten with larrupy dope or brown gravy.
[US]DN V 205: Dope [...] Meat gravy.
[US] (ref. to c.1860) AS XIII:3 237: Dope was sowbelly gravy.
[US] in DARE.
(ref. to c.1929) Wentworth &Flexner DAS 156/1: ‘All dopes [sauce put over ice cream] 5 cents extra.’ Sign in ice cream fountain.

2. (orig. US) any form of medicine or medicinal preparation; thus sleep dope, a sleeping draught or injection.

1897
190019502000
2023
[US]Juniata Sentinel (Mifflintown, PA) 3 Nov. 4/3: Klomndikers [...] take a baby along and a few Jimson weed seeds to make tea, and when the baby has its ‘dope’ [it] falls down.
[US]Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 46: Thought you might be the doctor with some more dope.
[US]News & Courier (Charleston, SC) 14 Apr. 18/1: What you want [...] is about two quarts of that slow dope that they use down at the track on the not meant ones.
[US]Van Loan ‘Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 8: Smelzer would make up an immense supply of ‘dope’ for his arm [...] a sticky, smelly mystery.
[UK]‘Sapper’ No Man’s Land 176: You’re going to have a quarter-grain of sleep dope.
[UK]‘Sapper’ Final Count 835: Now, darling, I want you to take some sleep dope and go to bed.
[US](con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 757: They keep her under dope most of the time.
[UK]G. Fairlie Capt. Bulldog Drummond 45: I’d put the dope on extra thick [...] but practically as soon as the cloth hit his face he went under.
[UK]J. Braine Room at the Top (1959) 198: Not serious enough for the doctors to give her the dope necessary to keep away the pain.
[US]Waukesha Freeman (WI) 29 Mar. K4/2: [memoir of mid-19C] The ‘doc’ made his own pills — ‘the real dope,’ Camp said.
[Aus]W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 288: I went into the house and got the bottle of pills and walked out into the yard [...] With an almighty heave I threw that filthy rotten little bottle of dope right over the back fence.
[US]T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 167: The nurse said she’d phone the doctor and maybe he’d authorize more dope.
[US] N. Flexner Disassembled Man [ebook] That bout of insantity could be attributed to the dope that they pumped through my veins.
[US](con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 148: [of Dilaudid] The dope hit me. It cocooned me, warm and safe.

3. any preparation, mixture or drug that is not spec. named.

1858
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1970
[US]Ashtabula Wkly Teleg. (OH) 4 Dec. 1/7: I learned something of his giving dope to his horses [...] I learned that he was giving his horse arsenic and laudanum from Hiram and his brother.
[US]Sandusky Dly Commercial Register (OH) 9 Aug. 3/2: With a good formula for the ‘dope,’ good timber, a little skill and experience in preparing the material and ‘dipping’ the matches, there is no trouble in making a good article.
[US]Lawrence Republican Jrnl (KS) 22 Apr. 2/2: The weather has been so inclement for some days, that I have not yet been able to get all my trees in their places. But they are not lying around loose. All are carefully heeled in, their roots having been first dipped in a ‘dope’ of mud and water.
[US]E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden Explains 121: Where dey gives dope like de Keeley cure, only for de wheel habit stid of for booze.
[US]Ade Forty Modern Fables 188: Give me some perfumed Dope that will restore a Peaches and Cream Complexion on or before May 1st.
[Can]R. Service ‘My Friends’ in Ballads of a Cheechako 78: Often I wondered why / They did not [...] finish me off with a dose of dope—so utterly lost was I.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Aug. 24/4: I would like to know the ingredients of a particular brand of snake-juice that the Japs have popularised in the pearling industry at Broome (W.A.) [...]. On several occasions I have seen apparently asphyxiated Malay and Jap. divers brought back from the banks of the Styx [...] after the administration of the dope.
[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 392: Dope is my only hope ... Ah! Destruction! The black panther! [...] The black panther was himself the ghost of his own father. He drank drugs to obliterate.
[US]Walter Davis ‘Ashes In My Whiskey’ 🎵 She put black dope in my coffee, / With that castor oil in my tea.
[US]J.M. Cain Moth (1950) 208: Dope. Soup. To kill the bugs [...] we put it in the tank and squirt it on the trees.
[US](con. 1944) A. Myrer Big War 426: One swallow cures all your ills. Glues everything together: like airplane dope.
[US]E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 277: The team suited up in a dirt-floored room [...] where there was an unheated shower bath, a puddle of cold dope to keep you from getting athlete’s foot.

4. any form of grease, lubricant, coolant etc.

1876
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1930
[US]Albert Lea Enterprise (Albert Lea, MN) 30 Mar. 1/4: Nothing was known of the mysteries of ‘dope’—a preparation of pitch which, being applied to the bottom of the shoes, enables the wearer to glide over snow softened by the warmth of the sun [...] Without ‘dope’ the soft snow stuck to, and so clogged his shoes that it was impossible for him to travel in it.
[US]Scientific American 2 Oct. 219/3: How is ‘dope’ or harness blacking made? A. 1. Molasses,½lb.; lampblack, 1 oz. ; yeast, a spoonful ; sugar, olive oil, gum tragacanth, and isinglass, each 1 oz. ; and a cow’s gall. Mix with 2 pints stale beer, and let stand before the fire for an hour.
[US]H.E Hamblen General Manager’s Story 14: An’ then I have to cart a carload of dope round the yard every day.
[US]DN II 233: Dope, [...] any kind of lubricator, emulsion, or salve.
[US]DN V 205: Dope [...] Axle grease.
[UK](con. WW1) Hall & Niles One Man’s War 128: [T]he hangars smelled of gasoline and wing dope, and new wood, and burned castor oil.
[US] ‘Aviation Lingo’ AS V:5 290: Dope, n. Liquid for shrinking and making fabric of the wings air tight.

5. (US) butter.

1889
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1896
[Can] in Dict. Canadianisms.
[US]Sun (NY) 28 Mar. 2/6: ‘Pass the dope,’ is a request for butter.

6. (US) coffee.

1899
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1946
[US]K. Munroe Forward, March 28: Had breakfast hours ago [...] Scouse, slumgullion, hush puppy, dope without milk, and all sorts of things.
[US]U. Sinclair Jungle 184: They had brought him his supper, which was ‘duffers and dope’ – being hunks of dry bread on a tin plate, and coffee, called ‘dope’ because it was drugged to keep the prisoners quiet.
[US]F. Eikel Jr ‘An Aggie Vocab. of Sl.’ AS XXI:1 32/2: Dope, n. Coffee.

7. (orig. US drugs) any form of illicit drug; orig. opium, but taking in all popular ‘recreational’ drugs, esp. marijuana.

1883
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2023
[US]Sun (NY) 20 May 2/7: I never got any such effect from smoking ‘dope’ (opium).
[US]L.A. Times 4 Aug. 2 n.p.: [headline] Contraband ‘Dope’. [...] Yesterday a couple of Chinamen were caught trying to work this scheme, and about an ounce of ‘dope’ confiscated.
[US]World (N.Y.) 10 Feb. 20/5–6: ‘Give us a layout and a shell of “dope,”’ ordered the reporter’s companion.
[US]Campbell, Knox & Byrnes Darkness and Daylight in N.Y. 570: The opium used for smoking – called by the smokers ‘dope’ – is an aqueous extract of the ordinary commercial gum.
[US]H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 127: He had a yen that had crawled into his very soul and thence sent out a wail for the dope [i.e. opium].
[US]F.H. Tillotson How I Became a Detective 88: ‘Dope’ means morphine.
[US]G. Herriman Dingbat Family 31 Mar. [synd. cartoon strip] [sign on wooden ‘drugstore Indian’] Smoke the el dopo].
[UK]‘Sax Rohmer’ Dope 177: The dark thing you saw behind it all, Mary was dope! Kazmah’s is a secret drug syndicate. [Ibid.] 268: This joint stinks of opium and a score of other dopes.
[UK]N. Lucas Autobiog. of a Thief 71: The dope’s got me, boy! [...] I can’t live without cocaine.
[Aus]Truth (Brisbane) 28 Oct. 13/2: [pic. caption] These containers of ‘treacle’ — as the dope [i.e. opium] is termed in slang — are bought by smugglers from the Orient.
[US]M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 3: I have used dope, but it never got a hold on me. The only times I took occasion to smoke opium were when I felt daring and devilish. [Ibid.] 142: The term dope includes, I suppose, the use of chloral, but that is only given to the Johns.
[Aus]A.W. Upfield House of Cain 98: ‘Dope’s getting a bit stale,’ Hendry remarked, cutting a pipeful of tobacco.
[UK]E. Glyn Flirt & Flapper 25: Flapper: Dope — is what makes you forget to-day and to-morrow, but remember the day after that — and how!
[US]W. O’Connor Jockeys, Crooks and Kings 41: [of a horse] I’ve seen the dope concealed in a hollow carrot [...] and fed to a skate who went out a few minutes later and got the money.
[US]R. Chandler ‘Guns At Cyrano’s’ in Red Wind (1946) 198: Eyes in which there was a peculiar stare he had seen before. A load of dope.
[UK]V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 15: On one trip he carries dope, either cocaine or heroin.
[US]Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 144: Dope costs less here than elsewhere. At this writing opium is down to $5 a bindle.
[UK]Oh Boy! No. 16 13: Heroin! Cocaine! Enough dope to stiffen a fortress.
[US]Southern & Hoffenberg Candy (1970) 46: [of heroin] The curtain scene [...] shows Hall leaning against the window, trying to shoot some dope into the vein of his temple.
[US]N. Heard Howard Street 18: He had been a big man once, before he started using dope.
[US]D. Goines Street Players 12: That dope that was found in Dicky’s car belonged to the white bitch.
[UK]S. McConville ‘Prison Language’ in Michaels & Ricks (1980) 525: Other names [for cannabis] include [...] the familiar pot, dope, tea, and weed.
[US]D.E. Miller Bk of Jargon 324: Morphine. Also cube, dope, [...] white stuff.
[US]J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 239: I had three things left to accomplish in San Francisco: scoring some dope, preferably heroin.
[US](con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 36: Karen was running with a high school crowd experimenting with dope.
[UK]J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 138: Very big business, smack and crack and whatever. [...] Big dope, big deals, big geezers.
[Aus]R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] ‘I don’t smoke dope. I smoke pot. Ganja. Junkies use dope’.
[UK]Indep. 10 Jan. 6: Girls who have got into the craze of smoking weed and dope.
[US](con. 1990s) in J. Miller One of the Guys 112: ‘They don’t even sell dope for real, little BGs out here selling for them’.
[US]A.N. LeBlanc Random Family 41: Talent had a female relative who worked in the heroin trade. George decided to switch over from selling coke to selling dope.
[US]C. Carr Our Town 292: They found dope in Jeff’s house! Dope! Marijuana!
[Aus]L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] Dope [i.e. cannabis] made me want to eat everything in sight, then hide in a closet, trembling.
[US]J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 30: Booze and dope regulated my fantasy life.
[US]M. McBride Swollen Red Sun 10: White-trash pharmacies [...] would always trade pills for dope. A box of pills got you half a gram [of methedrine].
[Scot]A. Parks Bloody January 5: Was sure he could smell dope from somewhere.
[Aus]C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘[D]rinking and smoking dope? Doesn’t sound very priestly’.
[Scot]G. Armstrong Young Team 33: Me n Kenzie’s git a bit ae dope.
[US]D. Winslow ‘Broken’ in Broken 16: ‘Here’s to taking dope off the streets’.
[US](con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 408: [of opium] This weird Chinaman [...] may or may not cook dope.

8. (US drugs) a measure of opium, good for several pipefuls.

N. Ohio Journal (Painesville, OH) 14 June 1/4: The [opium] den [...] is so jealously guarded that four doors have to be passed through before the smoking-room is reached, where a ‘dope’ for ten cents, requiring about twenty minutes to smoke, is obtained.

9. (US) constr. with the, the suitable or ideal thing.

1905
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1918
[US]Spokane Press (WA) 28 July 2/1: Dashwood was there with the ‘dope’ yesterday both with the stick and behind the bat.
[US]B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 109: ‘You must dress as befitting the brother of a great candidate.’ ‘Is this the dope?’ ‘Fine, all but that turndown collar.’.
[US]S.F. Call 17 July 11/2: The B&Q [railroad], which is lovingly known to the bo under the nickname ‘the dope,’ is the easiest road in the world to travel on [...] where it is easy to beg.
[US]‘Max Brand’ ‘Above the Law’ in Coll. Stories (1994) 47: Say, this mountain air is all the dope for hard sleeping, what?

10. (Aus./US) flattery, foolishness, nonsense.

1906
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1921
[US]DN III 134: Dope, n. Cajolery; optimistic talk; humbug.
C. Fowler letter 29 July in Tomlinson Rocky Mountain Sailor (1998) 376: This, and a lot more, is the line of dope that he handed out to me this afternoon, handed out in the manner of a lawyer .
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 23 July 22/3: Every year thousands of bush-workers ride as far, and farther, in pursuit of crusts, and not fame. Often the bushworker cyclist runs out of rations, gets bogged, runs into flooded creeks and rivers and all the other things the advertising overlander gets such ‘dope’ for doing.
[UK]19th Century May 748: He does not quite believe that the Bolshevik leaders themselves believe in their doctrines. He strongly suspects that on their part it is mainly ‘dope’. The Bolsheviks know all about dope.

11. (Aus./US) alcohol, esp. whisky.

1906
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1942
[US]Salt Lake Herald (UT) 30 Mar. 4/5: He is full of [...] dope.
[US]J. London ‘The Pen’ Road 115: I do know, whatever their dope was, that they got good and drunk on occasion.
[Aus]C.J. Dennis ‘The Battle of the Wazzir’ in Moods of Ginger Mick n.p.: An’ they called upon the drink-shops an’ poured out their rotten dope.
[Aus]Register (Adelaide) 20 Dec. 7/3: [He] made very strong remarks on the effect of ‘dope’ on soldiers. he said drink was a curse to the sick soldiers [...] I am down on dope shops.
[Aus](con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: dope. [...] liquor.
[UK]N. Marsh Death in Ecstasy 80: It’s some sissy dope [...] Invalid Port. One half per cent alcohol.
[US]Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 22 Aug. 7/6: Shot of Dope — (drink of luqor).

12. unspecified and wide-ranging ‘stuff’, varying as to context.

1898
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1995
[US]Hawaii Holumua 18 Nov. 2/1: He might tell us about the miraculous transformation of dope into bricks or straw or molasses.
[US]Appeal (St Paul, MN) 14 Mar. 3/2: Don Francesco [...] has set up a claim of being a natural cousin of king Alfonso of Spain,. and wants a share of the dope accumulated by the old daddy of both of them.
[US]J.W. Carr in ‘Word-List From Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:v 395: dope, n. Not only any kind of drug but nearly anything else. ‘Swell dope is anything and everything mental, oratorical, musical, artistic, or gastronomic that the speaker approves of.’.
[US]D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 45: Th’ only trouble is dey plays too much of dat high-toned dope. I like rags an’ waltzes.
[US]H.E. Rollins ‘A West Texas Word List’ in DN IV:iii 225: dope, n. [...] Contemptuous name for any article, as ‘Don’t buy any of the dope he’s selling’.
[Can]R. Service ‘A Pot of Tea’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 187: All kinds of fancy foreign dope, from caffy and doo lay.
[Can]R. Service ‘The Ballad of Soulful Sam’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 109: He always ’ad tracts in his pocket [...] I used to read ’em religious, and frequent I’ve been impressed / By some of them bundles of ’oly dope he carried around in his vest.
[UK](con. 1942) A. Sillitoe Life Without Armour (1996) 66: In a hangar smelling of peardrops, or ‘dope’ as we called it, we were given a parachute.

13. a regular user of a given drug.

1900
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1959
[US]A.H. Lewis ‘Mulberry Mary’ in Sandburrs 10: Its den dey quits callin’ her Mulberry Mary, an’ she goes be d’ name of Mollie d’Dope.
[US]H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 360: I ast for the first floor front, an’ you said nix, but you let a coupla dopes have it.
[US]R. Lardner ‘My Roomy’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 341: I was sure he wasn’t no stew [...] And if he’d been a dope I’d of knew about it — roomin’ with him.
[US]N. Anderson Hobo 68: He denied being a ‘dope’ then and it was not till three days later when he was seen in Grant Park that he admitted the fact. He came to Chicago because he knew more people here and was certain of getting morphine.
[US]L. Berg Prison Nurse (1964) 28: Once a junkie, always a dope, is my opinion.
H.B. Darrach Jr. ‘Sticktown Nocturne’ in Baltimore Sun (MD) 12 Aug. A-3/4: Alice [...] is a ‘sniff,’ and sniffs can’t stand the smell of the weed. ‘Different dopes don’t mix,’ Mahoney observed.
[US]J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

14. (US) an otherwise unspecified poison or adulterant.

1903
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1927
[US]Inter Ocean (Chicago) 17 Dec. 3/1: [Mickey] Finn gave his customers ‘dope’ when one of them got foolish with drink in his place.
[Aus]W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 20: dope [...] (6) poison.
[US]H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 71: The dope the old friar give her was wore off Juliet, and she opens her eyes.

15. (US) a state of mental indolence, an emotional ‘fog’, thus adj. dopey, bemused.

C. Fowler letter 20 Feb in Tomlinson Rocky Mountain Sailor (1998) 214: I am still in a ‘dope’ What is going on in the world seems to have so little effect [...] altho I can understand the importance of these matters to everybody, I cannot shake off the dopey feeling enough to investigate and ponder on these subjects .
C. Fowler letter 21 May in Tomlinson Rocky Mountain Sailor (1998) 230: I appreciate liveliness in others and like to be where there is something going on [...] It stimulates a fellow's thoughts and brings him out of his dope .

16. (US drugs) a state of drugged intoxication.

1919
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1922
in Marine Corps Gazette Dec. 1925 187: Snap out of your dope and fall in column of fours! [HDAS].
[US]Sat. Eve. Post 3 June 10: Walks round in a kind of dope [HDAS].

17. (US) a cigarette.

1918
191819191920
1921
[US]Wadsworth Gas Attack 37: He’d haul out of one his iodine-dipped dopes and light one up.
[US] in Amer. Legion Wkly 25 Mar. 16: The soothing benediction of a ‘dope’ or a ‘chew.’.

18. Coca-Cola or any other carbonated drink.

1907
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1974
[US]Jackson Herald (MO) 25 July 1/5: In some parts of the South coca cola drinkers call it ‘dope,’ and in Tennessee some very careful reliable persons say that this drink has a very peculiar effect upon those who imbibe, cases were followed up of boys and girls who drink it and they seem to be in an unnatural condition and wanted it in increasing quantities.
Marketing Communications 23 Sept. 46/2: Finally there is the problem with which we are immediately concerned, the propensity of a large proportion of those who regularly drink Coca-Cola to call for their favorite drink as ‘dope’ or ‘coke’ or ‘koke’ .
[US]T. Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel (1930) 287: Drink Coca-Cola. [...] Dope at Wood’s better. Too weak here. He had recently acquired a taste for the beverage and drank four or five glasses a day. [Ibid.] 463: ‘What are you going to have?’ ‘Make it a dope.’.
[UK](con. 1922) R.E. Burns I Am a Fugitive 84: I stopped at this stand and got a ‘dope’ (as they call Coca Cola in Georgia).
[US]Life 27 Jan. 79: A shot of dope = a coke [W&F].
[US]Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 2: cool dope – a soft drink [...] A coke, i.e. coca-cola, is still called a dope by many old people in the South.

19. molasses, treacle, syrup.

1916
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a.1972
Thompson Round Levee 45: ‘Dope’ is molasses [HDAS].
[US] AS IV:5 420: Dope – Any sauce which is put over ice-cream as ‘All dopes 5 cents extra.’.
[US]Weseen Dict. Amer. Sl. 179: [College] Dope [...] sauce or flavoring put on ice cream.
[US] in DARE.
[US]C. Shafer ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 203: dope, n. – syrup.

In derivatives

dopily (adv.)

in a manner suggesting intoxication by a given drink or drug.

A.T. Rogers ‘Casual Observer’ in Charlotte Obs. (NC) 7 Apr. sect. 3 8/8: She was sitting dopily on the bed, pouring herself another drink.

In compounds

dope addict (n.)

(orig. US) a drug addict, orig. the drug was opium.

1916
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1978
[US]Day Book (Chicago) 9 June 6/2: Will Michael, dope addict, dying of ‘coke’ in Kenosha Jail.
[US]Wash. Times (DC) 31 Dec. 5/1: Police admit there are yet at least 5,000 dope addicts in Washington.
[US]J. Spenser Limey 34: Sprout and Batty were not dope addicts.
[US]H. Asbury Gangs of Chicago (2002) 211: Another [hotel] was patronized only by dope addicts, and cocaine and morphine were sold openly over the desk.
[US]Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 130: There was [...] something very much like Hunkey the NY dope addict in him.
[US]J. Gelber Connection 22: This is Ernie. he’s our dope addict psychopath.
[US]B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 143: I followed a dope addict this far, and he put me down.
[US](con. WWII) T. Sanchez Hollywoodland (1981) 65: Listen, you dirty little dope addict.
dope booster (n.) [var. use of booster n.1 (1)]

(US drugs) a drug seller, esp. when proselytizing new customers/users.

1942
19451950
1953
[US]Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
[US]Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 307: dope booster. One who incites others to drug-taking and directs them to the peddler.
dope-boy (n.)

a drug dealer.

1998
20002010
2020
[US]Source Oct. 165: Dope-boys with small stashes of cash and large egos.
[US]UGK ‘Cocaine’ 🎵 We them real dope boys [...] big dope in the trunk.
[US]N. Walker Cherry 7: He’s alright as far as dope boys go .
[US]Woods & Soderburg I Got a Monster 8: Acura TLs, Honda Accords, and Honda Odysseys were ‘dope boy’ cars.
dope chute (n.)

(US) a drug supplier.

[US](con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 33: I’m [...] her big brother’s ex-bird dog and dope chute.
dope city (n.) [-city sfx]

(drugs) any area of a town known for its high level of drug sales/consumption.

Courtroom Television ‘Notorious Murders: Barbara Graham’ on Crime Library 🌐 Barbara had joined Henry in dope city. She had become a full-blown junkie, with a hypodermic needle and spoon in her purse at all times, just like her cigarettes and lipstick.
dope crew (n.) [crew n. (4)]

(drugs) a group of drug dealers who divide up, package and then retail the bulk purchases of the drug (usu. crack cocaine).

1992
19921993
1994
[US]R. Price Clockers 5: Andre was obsessed with the dope crew that worked the Dumont side of the projects.
[US]C. Major Juba to Jive.
dope daddy (n.)

(US drugs) a drug dealer.

1936
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1955
[UK] (ref. to 1920s) L. Duncan Over the Wall 145: Little Gwen [...] had wrecked Tom Murray’s future, by bargaining for her ‘dope daddy’s’ freedom.
[US]H. Braddy ‘Narcotic Argot Along the Mexican Border’ in AS XXX:2 87: DOPE DADDY, n. A peddler.
dope doctor (n.)

1. (US) a general practitioner known for his/her (over-)prescribing of narcotics.

1915
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1943
[US]Proc. Nat. Wholesale Druggists Assoc. 41 258: The expression ‘upon whom such physician shall personally attend’ [...] precludes the possibility of a ‘dope doctor’ opening an office and dispensing to habitues without keeping a record.
[US]O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 6 Sept. [synd. col.] The ‘dope doctors’ [...] have their offices in the tnderloin district and with a druggist as an ally have little trouble in carrying on their traffic.
[UK]E. Murphy Black Candle 241: Certain physicians usually denominated as ‘dope doctors,’ have taught the use of the hypodermic needle to their patients.
[US]R. Chandler Lady in the Lake (1952) 144: ‘Just what do you mean by a dope doctor, Mr Grayson?’ ‘I mean a docor whose practice is largely with people who are living on the raw edge of nervous collapse, from drink and dissipation. People who have to be given sedatives and narcotics all the time. The stage comes when an ethical physician refuses to treat them any more [...] But not the Dr Almores. They will keep on as long as [...] the patient remains alive and reasonably sane, even if he or she becomes a hopeless addict in the process.

2. a doctor who administers painkillers.

www.pangaea.to 🌐 The dope doctor missed the mark on the first shot and I felt a jolt up my spine [...] After the second shot, however, the relief from pain was so fantastic that I once again began to cry.
dope fiend (n.) [fiend n. (1)/SE fiend; the original use, popularized in the US tabloid press of late 19C, referred to opium; the current incarnation refers to crack cocaine]

1. (drugs) a user of drugs, in modern use often used ironically.

1886
190019502000
2023
[US] ‘Life in a New York Opium Den’ in T. Byrnes Professional Criminals of America [Internet ] I have been cured of the habit and so have no more interest in keeping the secrets of the United Order of ‘Dope’ fiends.
[US]L.A. Times 2 May n.p.: [headline] ‘Dope’ Fiends. Police Officers Raid A Notorious Den. A Sallow-faced Pipe-hitter and a Nude Female Captured.
[US]C.W. Gardner Doctor and the Devil 39: He, too, was a ‘dope’ fiend.
[US]A.H. Lewis Boss 372: Our party is a dope fiend; it’s a horse to a hen at that very time he can be turned up in some Chink joint.
[US]R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 169: How do I know the nurse is not nothing but a grafter or a dope fiend maybe.
[UK]S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life vii: Further stories come from [...] tricksters, card-sharpers, dope-fiends and ‘drunks’.
[US]V.F. Nelson Prison Days and Nights 175: From their sensational writings [...] about ‘cokies’ and ‘dope fiends’, a great many prejudices and fallacies arise. [Ibid.] 180: The ‘dope fiend’ (who is really the cocaine sniffer) with his itchy nose, jerky movements, and general air of furtiveness.
[US]Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 99: I’ll skip the rest of the details [...] I’m not supposed to be writing an instruction manual on how to become a dope fiend.
[US]‘William Lee’ Junkie (1966) 75: Drug addict! Why you sonofabitch, you mean you’re a dope fiend!
[US]M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 35: The tourists will be thrilled to their socks thinking they’ve seen a real, hope-to-die dope fiend.
[UK]N. Cohn Awopbop. (1970) 213: All jazzmen had been dope-fiends for years.
[US]R.D. Pharr Giveadamn Brown (1997) 67: ‘You really going to risk prison for this — this dope fiend?’.
[US]J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 212: Once a dope fiend, always a dope fiend.
[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 20: Dopefiends don’t take lovers; their hearts seize hostages on the long retreat.
[UK]M. Amis Experience 207: I was surrounded, here, not by the bums and mendicants and diagonal dope-fiends of the Lower East Side.
[US](con. 1990s) in J. Miller One of the Guys 114: ‘Some of the dope fiends come out 24 hours a day’.
[US]G. Tate Midnight Lightning 100: James Marshall Hendrix was not a dope addict [...] he was no dope fiend.
[US]A. Steinberg Running the Books 139: The fuckin’ dopefiends, okay, all fuckin’ laughing their asses off.
[US]N. Walker Cherry 6: We had said, We’ll get a dog and we won’t be dope fiends any more.
[Aus]D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 104: Another dope fiend who’d chosen military service over prison time.
[US](con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 126: Monroe was a long-term dope fiend.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1957
1960197019801990200020102020
2021
[US]C. Himes Imabelle 30: A dope-fiend crook impersonating a Sister of Mercy.
[US]C. Himes Rage in Harlem (1969) 31: [as 1957].
[US]D. Goines Dopefiend (1991) 11: A dopefiend bitch ain’t shit.
Cooper & Wright New Jack City [film script] You think you slick, you little punk, blasphemous dope-fiend bitch!
[US]Rebennack & Rummel Under A Hoodoo Moon 130: I was living in Hollywood at a dope-fiend motel.
[US](con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 88: Motherfuckin’ dopefiend son of a bitch.
[US]T. Swerdlow Straight Dope [ebook] [M]y little dope fiend tutorial.
dopehead (n.) [-head sfx (4)]

1. (drugs) a drug user.

1906
19502000
2010
[Can]Province (Vancouver, BC) 23 Jan. 15/5: [headline] Arthur Holley, a Dopehead Sent up on a Vagrancy Charge.
[UK]Oakland Trib. (CA) 9 May 25/1: He was ghastly pale and in the parlance of the police reporter was then set down for a ‘dope-head’.
[US]Bisbee Dly Rev. (AZ) 26 Aug. 6: Many ‘Dope Heads’ Visit City Physician [...] in Effort to Secure ‘Hop’.
[US]Topeka Dly Capital (KS) 15 May 15/3: We can pick dopeheads out easily by their pallid complexions, emaciated appearance and puntured arms.
[US]Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 387: Well you sure have dished your gravy this time kid, cap’n’s a dopehead, first officer’s the damnedest crook out o Sing Sing.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[US]J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
[US]J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 295: Don’t think I don’t know you dopeheads go over there [...] and smoke grass.
[US]H. Harrison Bill [...] on the Planet of Robot Slaves (1991) 45: I am going to do a little catching up with you teaheads, dopeheads and boozeheads.
[UK]G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 65: Caroline may not have been a dopehead herself, but she knew dopeheads.
[US]F.X. Toole Rope Burns 229: He’d be up against two dope-heads with drawn weapons.
[US]C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 34: Vets are drunks and dopeheads.
[UK]K. Richards Life 14: This is the ’70s and boozers are not dopeheads [...] there was that separation.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1968
19701980199020002010
2014
[US]T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 395: Snotty dope-head kids!
[US]‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 64: He’s uh nasty dope head pimp.
[US]‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 71: Some dope-head surfer jerk had turned maniac.
E. Hagelstein ‘Our Lady of Mercy’ in ThugLit Mar. [ebook] [S]he hadn’t been part of Jeremy’s dopehead scheme to rob, kill, or whatever.
dope house (n.)

(drugs) any room or apartment in which drugs are on sale and may be used; a drug clinic (see cit. 1995).

1973
19801990200020102020
2021
[US]D. Goines Street Players 49: By the time you get out of the dopehouse, you ain’t got ten dollars left.
[US]T.R. Houser Central Sl. 19: dope house A residence from which is sold, and or manufactured, large quantities of illegal drugs.
[US]J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 142: The actual trek down to the legal dopehouse [i.e. a methadone clinic] necessitates some advance work.
[US](con. 1990s) in J. Miller One of the Guys 114: ‘[If] you by a dope house and then you go in there and go to sleep’.
[US]T. Swerdlow Straight Dope [ebook] You’re about to score and fix in a dope house every cop in L.A. knows.
dopeman (n.) [SE man, but note man n. (5d)]

a drug dealer.

1960
19601970198019902000
c.2003
[US]C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 153: The man is the biggest dope man in town.
[US]V.E. Smith Jones Men 6: You don’t belong up here with no big dope men.
[US]Ice-T ‘You Played Yourself’ 🎵 Every dollar you make you take straight to the dopeman / Trying to get a beam-up.
[US]Mack 10 ‘Based on a True Story’ 🎵 It was once said by a man who couldn’t quit / Dopeman please can I have another hit.
D. Vrij ‘Tying Off’ on Inter-zone.org 🌐 Money generated in increments above 15 or 20 dollars are destined for the dope man.
dope pad (n.) [pad n.2 (2)]

(US drugs) anywhere, e.g. a house, room or apartment, where drug addicts congregate to use drugs.

1968
197019751980
1983
[US]J. Hersey Algiers Motel Incident 305: Knocked over a dope pad and had stolen drugs and jewelry.
[US]V.E. Smith Jones Men 37: A suspected dope pad [...] on the city’s near west side.
[US]N. Heard House of Slammers 89: All the dope pads was closed, you couldn’t find no who’es.
dope rope (n.)

(US) the gold chains sported by well-off drug dealers.

posting at www.bennysizzler.com 12 June 🌐 Gamble, I’m calling you out. Meet at 3:15 parking lot of the old Warwick Shopper’s World. I’ll be the one wearing the dope rope with the SSS insignia...Bling Bling.
dope shop (n.)

(US drugs) a place where one can buy illicit drugs.

1898
190019101920
1926
[US]Herald (L.A.) 22 June 8/3: Dope Shop. Officers [...] arrestee Ye Wah Ching in Chinatown last night for [...] selling opium without a license.
[US]Shiner Gaz. (TX) 3 Apr. 2/2: The term dope shop came to signify more often the resort of dopes than a place for the sale and purchase of dope. The dope shops are as well known as any other class of dives.
[UK]‘Sax Rohmer’ Dope 73: Kazmah’s was a dope-shop?
[US]C.J. Daly ‘Lurking Shadows’ Triple-X Mag. May 🌐 The Rat knew the Chink’s well. It was a high-class dope shop.
dope stick (n.) [stick n. (6d)]

1. a cigarette.

1902
1910192019301940195019601970
1960
[US]Boston Globe Sun. Mag. 21 Dec. 7–8: Cigarettes are ‘dope sticks’.
[US]W. McKay Dream of the Rarebit Fiend [comic strip] You know how a cigarette fiend is when he gets up in the morning and can’t find a dope stick?
[US]H.E. Lee ‘Tough Luck’ Variety Stage Eng. Plays 🌐 Say, lets have that invalid dope stick yer breathing on?
[US]S. Ford Torchy, Private Sec. 260: I locates the export notes first stab; but the dope sticks ain’t in sight.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[US](ref. to c.1915) Wentworth & Flexner DAS 156/2: dope stickn. A cigarette.

2. a marijuana cigarette.

[US]T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 33: With that the old sport took another drag on the dope stick and faded away in the darkness.
dope trap (n.) [trap n.1 (9)]

(drugs) any room or apartment in which drugs are on sale.

2001
2001200220032004
2005
Big Jedd ‘Dwarf Throwing’ posting on 21 Jun. on Scotland’s Highland Games at ezboard.com 🌐 Dae ye need a password tae fling a darwf? Sounds like a dope trap.
[US]J. Buskey Tinged Valor 24: [O]fficers were ‘runnin’ whores, dope traps, and liquor houses.