hophead

English

From hop + -head.

hophead (plural hopheads)

(US, slang) A drug addict.
- 1939, Walton Hall Smith, Ferdinand Christian Helwig, Liquor, the Servant of Man, page 193:
  For the alcoholic there are numerous substitutes: a period of intense diversion and excitement, pressing need for rest, hypnotic sedatives, sleep. Not for the hophead. Sedatives don't touch it; he can't rest; he can't even sleep.
- 1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 107:
  “Oed,” looking at her puzzled, “you don't get addicted. It's not like you're some hophead. You take it because it's good. […]
- 1970, Wally Ferris, Across 110th, page 93:
  Hopheads, they screamed in three-inch headlines, which brought the inevitable police crackdown.
- 1990, John Updike, Rabbit at Rest, Knopf:
  Why should we all go around on tiptoe forever pretending the kid's not a hophead?
(UK, slang) A beer enthusiast or homebrewer, with emphasis on hoppier types of beer (i.e. brewed with more hops, like IPAs).