heroin

See also: Heroin, heróín, and hê-rô-in

English

Etymology

Since the 1890s, from German Heroin, originally a trademark said to derive from Ancient Greek ἥρως (hḗrōs, “hero”) (due to the feelings of power and exaltation while under the influence of the drug) and the suffix -in (“-ine”). Alternatively explained as reference to the heroic school of medicine.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɛɹoʊ.ɪn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: heroine
• Rhymes: -ɪn

Noun

heroin (countable and uncountable, plural heroins)

1. A powerful and addictive drug derived from opium producing intense euphoria classed as an illegal narcotic in most of the world. [from late 19th century]

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:heroin

   • 1967, Lou Reed (music), “Heroin”, in The Velvet Underground & Nico, performed by The Velvet Underground:

     Wow, that heroin is in my blood / And the blood is in my head / Yeah, thank God that I'm good as dead / Ooohhh, thank your God that I'm not aware / And thank God that I just don't care / And I guess I just don't know

   • 2009: Stuart Heritage, Hecklerspray, Friday the 22^nd of May in 2009 at 1 o’clock p.m., “Jon & Kate Latest: People You Don’t Know Do Crap You Don’t Care About”

     The reason why Jon & Kate Plus 8 is such a hot topic is because it might all be a sham. It’s been claimed that Jon has a string of mistresses, that Kate had an affair with her bodyguard and that Baby Number Six is actually a shaved Ewok with a catastrophic heroin addiction. Or something.

   • 2016, John Oliver, “Opiods”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 3, episode 27, written by Tim Carvell; Josh Gondelman; Dan Gurewitch; Jeff Maurer; Ben Silva; Will Tracy; Jill Twiss; Seena Vali; Julie Weiner, HBO, Warner Bros. Television:

     Yeah, it does, though, it does. Heroin works basically everywhere because it’s heroin. It’s not a cellphone. Heroin has full coverage.

   • 2017, John Oliver, “Confederacy”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 4, episode 26, written by Tim Carvell; Josh Gondelman; Dan Gurewitch; Jeff Maurer; Ben Silva; Will Tracy; Jill Twiss; Seena Vali; Julie Weiner, HBO, Warner Bros. Television:

     Okay, wel-, I’ll tell you where it stops: somewhere! Anytime someone asks, “Where does it stop?”, the answer is always fucking somewhere! You might let your kid have Twizzlers, but not inject black tar heroin! You d-You don’t just go, “Well, after the Twizzlers, where does it stop?”!

Synonyms

• (chemical names): diacetylmorphine, diamorphine
• (street names): Big H, boy, brown, dope, junk, H, horse, Ron, shit, skag, smack, train, yam yam

Translations

powerful and addictive drug

• Arabic: هِيرُويْن‎ m (hiruyn)
• Armenian: հերոին (heroin)
• Basque: heroina (eu)
• Bulgarian: хероин m (heroin)
• Catalan: heroïna (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 海洛英 (hoi² lok⁶ jing¹), 白粉 (baak⁶ fan²), 灰 (fui¹), 粉 (fan²), 四仔 (sei³ zai²)

  Mandarin: 海洛因 (zh) (hǎiluòyīn), 白麵 (zh), 白面 (zh) (báimiàn), 白麵兒 (zh), 白面儿 (zh) (báimiànr), 白粉 (zh) (báifěn)

• Czech: heroin m
• Danish: heroin c
• Dutch: heroïne (nl) f
• Esperanto: heroino
• Estonian: heroiin
• Faroese: heroin
• Finnish: heroiini (fi)
• French: héroïne (fr) f
• Galician: heroína f
• German: Heroin (de) n
• Greek: ηρωίνη (el) f (iroíni)
• Hindi: हेरोइन (heroin)
• Hungarian: heroin (hu)
• Icelandic: heróín n
• Ido: heroeno (io)

• Irish: héaróin
• Italian: eroina (it)
• Japanese: ヘロイン (ja) (heroin)
• Korean: 헤로인 (heroin)
• Latin: heroinum
• Latvian: heroīns
• Lithuanian: heroinas
• Macedonian: херои́н m (heroín)
• Norwegian: heroin m
• Persian: هروئین‎ (fa)
• Polish: heroina (pl) f
• Portuguese: heroína (pt) f, cavalo (pt) m (slang)
• Russian: герои́н (ru) m (geroín)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: херо̀ӣн m

  Roman: heròīn (sh) m

• Spanish: heroína (es) f
• Swedish: heroin (sv) n
• Thai: เฮโรอีน (th) (hay-roh-een)
• Turkish: eroin (tr)
• Urdu: ہیروئین‎ (heroīn)
• Vietnamese: bạch phiến
• Welsh: heroin

Further reading

• heroin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Horine, hieron, on hire

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Czech

Noun

heroin m

1. heroin

Synonyms

• herák

Further reading

• heroin in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu
• heroin in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989

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Danish

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -in

Noun

heroin c or n (singular definite heroinen or heroinet, uncountable)

1. heroin

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Finnish

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -eroin

Noun

heroin

1. Instructive plural form of hera.

Anagrams

• hieron

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Japanese

Romanization

heroin

1. Rōmaji transcription of ヘロイン

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Serbo-Croatian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /xerǒiːn/
• Hyphenation: he‧ro‧in

Noun

heròīn m (Cyrillic spelling херо̀ӣн)

1. heroin

Declension

Declension of heroin

	singular
nominative	heròīn
genitive	heroína
dative	heroinu
accusative	heroin
vocative	heroine
locative	heroinu
instrumental	heroinom

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Swedish

Etymology

From German Heroin.

Noun

heroin n

1. heroin

Declension

Declension of heroin
	Uncountable
	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	heroin	heroinet	—	—
Genitive	heroins	heroinets	—	—