hypo n.2
1. (also hyp, hypo-smecker) a drug addict, spec. one who injects narcotics.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Artie (1963) 45: I ought to be out at the Washin’tonian home with the rest o’ them stills and hypos. | |
| S.F. Call 27 Nov. 3/1: Those who take [...] cocaine by hypodermic injections are called ‘hypos’ or ‘hyps’. | |
| Detroit Free Press (MI) 26 Apr. 82/3: A gang of ‘snuffers’ and ‘hypos’ had their hangout around Michigan avenue. | |
| Hop-Heads 77: I’m out here to find out if the hypos will appreciate a clinic if one is started for them. | |
| Grimhaven 158: Jocky had been a drug addict, and his friends among the hypos were many. | |
| Hobo’s Hornbook 35: There was Hypo Gann and Lefty Moran. | |
| ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in Lang. Und. (1981) 104/1: hypo-smecker. A needle-addict. | |
| Traffic In Narcotics 310: hypo. An addict who self-injects the drugs with a hypodermic needle. | |
| Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) 163: They’re an awfully tight group, the hypos. If some hypo finds out that another hypo is a stool pigeon they give him [...] a hot shot. If you take it you’re gone. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 133: Now Hypo, he was a gentleman, and Cokie, he was a rat, / a smoker can respect himself, but a drunkard can’t do that. | |
| (con. 1920s) Monkey Off My Back (1972) 36: Because I was known to run with a rough bunch and used narcotics, I suddenly found myself classified in the company of [...] ‘Hypo’ Dinneke. |
2. (also hypo-gun) a hypodermic syringe.
| Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xx: I eat so much that I couldn’t have crowded any more in me with a hypo. | |
| God’s Man 39: Morphine and cocaine are ammunition; ‘guns’ – that is, ‘hypos’, hypodermic syringes – arms. | |
| Fighting Blood 289: ’At’s plain warm water in that hypo. | |
 | Burlington Dly Times (NC) 19 Dec. 1/7: [A] hypo-gun shooting victim. | |
| ‘Death on Eagle’s Crag’ in Goulart (1967) 193: McClosky, the lousy old snooper, found the hypo in my room. | |
| Long Day’s Journey into Night Act III: Caught her in the act with a hypo. | |
| Always Leave ’Em Dying 90: [She] squirted the stuff out and stuck the hypo back into its case in a hurry. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 71: [P]rodding his bruised arm with the blunt point of the hypo, desperately searching for a vein to send the poison in to a mainline station. | |
| One to Count Cadence (1987) 19: Sgt. Larkin [...] rushed in, pushing a rattling tray of hypos. | |
| False Starts 241: He [...] fixed us with a ragged hypo taped to an eyedropper. | |
| Misery (1988) 226: He saw her slip the hypo into the pocket of her skirt. | |
| Yes We Have No 254: Sick of finding used condoms and hypos in their front gardens. | |
| I, Fatty 111: The medicine man pulled out a hypo and asked for my arm. | |
| Hard Bounce [ebook] I got an eyeful of [...] the long needle tracks along [...] his inner thigh. The clatter I’d heard was a dropped hypo. |
3. a hypodermic injection.
| (con. 1910s) A Corporal Once 292: Put a little iodine on his leg where I gave him that hypo! | |
| (con. 1944) Naked and Dead 362: Give him a hypo, twice the usual amount, if he’s too restless. | |
| Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Act III: I know how to give a hypo. | |
| Go, Man, Go! 35: Fuel injection with a hypo. | |
| Gonif 178: We both needed a mental hypo, some kind of new therapy that would put back a zest in living. | |
| Misery (1988) 225: Hypo or bee sting, no difference. |
4. attrib. use of sense 3.
| God’s Man 39: We used to get seventy-five cents for a hundred cubes of the unrefined, ninety-five for the same in pressed hypo tablets, half-grains, that is. | |
| Female Convict (1960) 99: Let me see your hypo marks. | |
| Spook who Sat by the Door (1972) 82: Hypo scars on the forearm, the pupils dilated by drugs. |
In compounds
(US drugs/und.) an habitual user of narcotics.
| Statesman Jrnl (Salem, OR) 21 Aug. 3/2: Charles Hope, the hypo fiend, demanded a jury trial. | |
| Scarmento Bee (CA) 29 Mar. 3/3: [headline] Too Much Morphine / A ‘Hypo Fiend’ Ends His days By Taking an Overdose. | |
| Salt Lake Herald (UT) 10 Mar. 10/1: [headline] How to Tell the Poor Victims of the ‘Gun’. [...] — The Sensations Produced by the Use of Morphine and Cocaine — ‘Dutch George,’ the Best Known of the Hypo Fiends. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 7 Apr. 3/1: The hypo fiend is the most common caller at the gaming tables. | |
| Spokane Press (WA) 4 Aug. 2/7: Negroes [and] the poorer classes of women of the streets are chief users of ‘snow.’ In the higher palaces of sin can be found the ‘hypo’ fiends who use the ‘coke’ in its pure form. |
In phrases
(drugs) to sell poor quality drugs.
| Duke 3: You only get mad when you get beat stuff, stuff that’s no good. If you don’t know who to get it from they pull a lot of hypos on you. |