dope

From Dutch doop (“thick dipping sauce”), from Dutch dopen (“to dip”), from Middle Dutch dopen, from Old Dutch *dōpen, from Frankish *daupijan, from Proto-Germanic *daupijaną.

Sense “narcotic drug” originally from viscous opium pastes, “insider information” perhaps from knowing which horse had been doped in a race.[1] Sense of "stupid person" perhaps following from the drug sense (i.e. relating to those intoxicated on opium), compare dope up. Related to English dip and German taufen.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): [dəʊp]
• (US) IPA^(key): [doʊp]

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊp

dope (countable and uncountable, plural dopes)

1. (uncountable) Any viscous liquid or paste, such as a lubricant, used in preparing a surface.
   • 1977, Robert O. Parmley, Standard Handbook of Fastening and Joining, New York: McGraw-Hill, →ISBN, page 247:

     Use a good pipe dope on the NPT threads. When applying pipe dope do not put any on the first two threads from the end. Always put dope on the male thread—never on the female thread.

2. (uncountable) An absorbent material used to hold a liquid.
3. (uncountable, aeronautics) Any varnish used to coat a part, such as an airplane wing or a hot-air balloon in order to waterproof, strengthen, etc.
4. (uncountable, slang) Any illicit or narcotic drug that produces euphoria or satisfies an addiction; particularly heroin. [from late 19th c.]
   • 1900, “Gifford Arthur Nelson”, in The Naughty-Naughtian, page 118:

     If you are at all bright, don't be a grind. Grinding may make a second-hand genius of you (for all the real things are dead), and if you become a genius you will be sure to smoke dope or swallow laudanum. They all did it.

   • a. 1911, David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise‎:

     But she went her way. Not until she accompanied a girl to an opium joint to discover whether dope had the merits claimed for it as a deadener of pain and a producer of happiness—not until then did Freddie come in person.

   • 1953, Tom Lehrer, “The Old Dope Peddler”, in Songs by Tom Lehrer, Pantheon, published 1981, page 18:

     Here's a cure for all your troubles / Here's an end to all distress / It's the old dope peddler / With his powdered happiness

   • 1968, Roger Waters (lyrics and music), “Incarceration Of A Flower Child”, published 1999, performed by Marianne Faithfull:

     Do you remember me? / How we used to be / Helpless and happy and blind? / Sunk without hope / In a haze of good dope / And cheap wine?

5. (uncountable, slang) Information, usually from an inside source, originally in horse racing and other sports. [from early 20th c.]

   Synonym: scoop

   What's the latest dope on the stock market?

   • 1917 October 25, Ernest Hemingway, “To Clarence Hemingway”, in Sandra Spanier; Robert W. Trogdon, editors, The letters of Ernest Hemingway, volume 1, Cambridge University Press, published 2011, →ISBN, page 55:

     I got thru the lines and talked with the Captain and got all the Dope.^[sic]

   • 2000 August 7, Robert Newman, “Performers of the world unite”, in The Guardian‎:

     Same with Michael Moore. When the people's champ gives us the dope on corporate bosses and sweatshop kings, he never presents their greed as some kind of deplorable personal trait.

   • 2013, Deborah Solomon, American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 198:

     “Everyone seems less excited about the war here than out there. When I do get the dope on the poster situation, I will let you know.” He and Forsythe were itching to contribute to the war effort by designing recruitment posters.

6. (uncountable, fireams) Ballistic data on previously fired rounds, used to calculate the required hold over a target.
7. (countable, slang) A stupid person.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:fool

   • 1902, “The Barrister's Shakespeare”, in The Green Bag, volume XIV, page 525:

     The reasons why this verification is made by her and not by the defendant is because he is a dope and a fat-head and hasn't sense enough to do it himself.

8. (US, Ohio) Dessert topping.

dope (third-person singular simple present dopes, present participle doping, simple past and past participle doped)

1. (transitive, slang) To affect with drugs.

   Synonym: administer

   • 1915, Jack London, chapter 2, in The Star Rover‎:

     Cecil Winwood accepted the test. He claimed that he could dope the guards the night of the break. "Talk is cheap," said Long Bill Hodge. "What we want is the goods. Dope one of the guards to-night."

   • 1929, Horatio Sawyer Earle, The Autobiography of “By Gum” Earle, page 105:

     Now, suppose another veterinarian should come along with another medicine, named “Goine;” and that a quart of it would make a horse go twice as fast, and you should dope the horse with both medicines […]

2. (transitive) To treat with dope (lubricant, etc.).
3. (transitive, electronics) To add a dopant such as arsenic to (a pure semiconductor such as silicon).
   • 2011, Cathleen Shamieh; Gordon McComb, Electronics For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 113:

     Another way to dope semiconductors is to use materials like boron, in which each atom has one fewer valence electron than does a sillicon atom.

4. (intransitive, now chiefly sports) To use drugs; especially, to use prohibited performance-enhancing drugs in sporting competitions.
   • 2015, Vassilis Barkoukis; Lambros Lazuras; Haralambos Tsorbatzoudis, The Psychology of Doping in Sport‎, Routledge, →ISBN:

     The more experienced cyclists, who doped or used to dope, transmitted the culture of doping to the younger cyclists, teaching them doping methods and suggesting which substances to use.

5. (slang, transitive, dated) To judge or guess; to predict the result of.

• dope up

dope (comparative doper, superlative dopest)

1. (slang) Amazing; cool.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:awesome

   That party was dope!

   • 1990, SPIN (volume 5, number 10, page 74)

     The dope conceptual beauty of the Jungle Brothers is the upful spin they put on black consciousness music, showing that being pro-black can be as much about hot fun in the summertime as gearing up for the next time.

   • 2015, Jonathan Herman; Andrea Berloff, Straight Outta Compton, spoken by Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins):

     That was dope, E. That shit was dope, man!

• deop, depo, op-ed, oped, p.o.'ed, p.o.ed, pedo, pedo-, pode, poed

• IPA^(key): [doːpə]

• Audio

  (file)

dope

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of dopen

From English dope.

• IPA^(key): /dɔp/

• audio

  (file)

dope f (plural dopes)

1. (informal) illicit drug, narcotic

dope

1. inflection of doper:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• IPA^(key): [ˈdoː.pə]

• Audio

  (file)

dope

1. inflection of dopen:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. singular imperative
   3. first/third-person singular subjunctive I

From dop +‎ -e.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdo.pe/

dope

1. back, behind, aback

• IPA^(key): /ˈdope/ [ˈd̪o.pe]
• Rhymes: -ope
• Syllabification: do‧pe

dope

1. inflection of dopar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative