drug
noun
a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.
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drug
1 American
[druhg]
/ drʌg /
noun
-
drugs
plural
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Pharmacology. a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.
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(in federal law)
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any substance recognized in the official pharmacopoeia or formulary of the nation.
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any substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in humans or other animals.
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any article, other than food, intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of humans or other animals.
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any substance intended for use as a component of such a drug, but not a device or a part of a device.
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a habit-forming medicinal or illicit substance, especially a narcotic.
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drugs,
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chemical substances prepared and sold as pharmaceutical items, either by prescription or over the counter.
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personal hygienic items sold in a drugstore, as toothpaste, mouthwash, etc.
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Obsolete. any ingredient used in chemistry, pharmacy, dyeing, or the like.
verb (used with object)
drugged,
drugging
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to administer a medicinal drug to.
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to stupefy or poison with a drug.
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to mix (food or drink) with a drug, especially a stupefying, narcotic, or poisonous drug.
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to administer anything nauseous to.
verb phrase
idioms
drug
2
American
[druhg]
/ drʌg /
verb
Nonstandard: Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S.
Drug
3
American
[droog]
/ drʊg /
noun
Zoroastrianism.
drug
British
/ drʌɡ /
noun
-
any synthetic, semisynthetic, or natural chemical substance used in the treatment, prevention, or diagnosis of disease, or for other medical reasons
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a chemical substance, esp a narcotic, taken for the pleasant effects it produces
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a commodity available in excess of the demands of the market
verb
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to mix a drug with (food, drink, etc)
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to administer a drug to
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to stupefy or poison with or as if with a drug
drug
Scientific
/ drŭg /
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A chemical substance, especially one prescribed by a medical provider, that is used in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of a condition or disease. Drugs are prescribed for a limited amount of time, as for an acute infection, or on a regular basis for chronic disorders, such as hypertension.
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A chemical substance such as a narcotic or a hallucinogen that affects the central nervous system and is used recreationally for perceived desirable effects on personality, perception, or behavior. Many recreational drugs are used illicitly and can be addictive.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of drug1
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English drogges (plural), from Middle French drogue, of obscure origin
Origin of Drug3
From the Avestan word drauga
Explanation
A drug is a medicine. Before you travel to India, your doctor may prescribe a drug to protect you from getting malaria. A substance that makes a change in your body is a drug. Most often, a drug is medicine prescribed by a doctor to protect a patient from illness, cure them, or relieve their pain. Drug also means an illegal substance taken simply for the way it makes the user feel. Drug is also a verb that describes both taking illegal drugs and giving someone a drug secretly, such as slipping it into their food or drink.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She says she would expand intelligence-sharing with Washington, work with U.S. agencies and the Coast Guard against drug trafficking and coordinate with Colombia to dismantle criminal groups on the border.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
Even at that elevated rate, it would mean two per every 10,000 people taking the drug on average would develop the condition.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
After the post circulated, Trump held a press briefing from the Oval Office to discuss drug pricing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
The Ozempic maker is partnering with the AI firm to speed up drug development.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
He’d fought for tax cuts and credits for the working poor and was focused on cutting prescription drug costs for senior citizens.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
Their use as a topping for sorbets at Evett came to light after the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety found online reviews accompanied by photographs.
From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2026
The Food and Drug Administration approved Shingrix, a recombinant vaccine, in 2017, and it quickly became the go-to shingles vaccine after its launch in early 2018.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
The Food and Drug Administration states that its safety assessment included more than 110 studies addressing potential toxic effects, along with human clinical research.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 14, 2026
The Food and Drug Administration has adopted these modern methods to approve new drugs for other slow-progressing diseases, including Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis and metabolic liver disease.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026
Although the Food and Drug Administration permits no residues of pesticides in milk, its restrictions are not only inadequately policed but they apply solely to interstate shipments.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
A large, company-funded study analyzed randomized-controlled trials of patients on the drugmaker’s GLP-1s and found the drugs didn’t increase patients’ risk of developing the condition.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
A separate group of lawsuits filed in federal district court in Philadelphia around the same time also allege that Novo and Lilly’s GLP-1 drugs caused NAION, and that the companies failed to adequately warn patients.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
For most conditions, the evidence remains scarcer than it is for obesity, diabetes, and the other conditions for which GLP-1 drugs have been approved.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
"We know these drugs improve health outcomes, and there's been a great deal of research documenting those benefits," said Kaestner, a research professor.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026
Instead he looked to our own Greek diet— our eggplant aswim in tomato sauce, our cucumber dressings and fish-egg spreads, ourpilafi, raisins, and figs—as potential curatives, as life-giving, artery-cleansing, skin-smoothing wonder drugs.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
Had Raynella drugged him and staged an accident?
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
"He arrived with brain trauma, sedated, drugged, breathing with a ventilator," Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said.
From Barron's ● Oct. 19, 2025
Thousands wrote letters to suggest ways of capturing Goldie, including "get a gun that shoots a net" and "use archers to fire drugged meat into the air".
From BBC ● Mar. 2, 2025
Mr. Olson was working at Fort Detrick and was unwittingly drugged with LSD in a CIA mind-control experiment that ended with him falling to his death from a New York hotel window.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 6, 2023
My mind felt slow, drugged with the strain of thought.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
With her brown bobbed haircut and round sunglasses, Pelicot has become an international feminist symbol, inspiring a change to French rape laws and a public reckoning with the problem of drugging women.
From Barron's ● Feb. 11, 2026
If there is widespread dog drugging, I certainly didn’t find that or hear about it, and I asked some questions along those lines.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2024
This new information could prove to be especially useful to drug developers hoping to create a new cancer treatment by drugging this interaction.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 15, 2023
About half the complaints that California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform receives about inappropriate drugging of residents involve Depakote, said Anthony Chicotel, the group’s top lawyer.
From New York Times ● Sep. 11, 2021
The constant drugging that conceals the symptoms of organic ailment may permit one of comparative insignificance at the time a patient entered a sanatorium to become incurable before he leaves.
From Habits that Handicap The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco, and the Remedy by Charles B. Towns
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
