adjective
- devoted or given up to a practice or habit or to something psychologically or physically habit-forming (usually followed by to): to be addicted to drugs.
noun
- a person who is addicted to an activity, habit, or substance: a drug addict.
verb (used with object)
- to cause to become physiologically or psychologically dependent on an addictive substance, as alcohol or a narcotic.
- to habituate or abandon (oneself) to something compulsively or obsessively: a writer addicted to the use of high-flown language; children addicted to video games.
verb (əˈdɪkt)
- (tr; usually passive often foll by to) to cause (someone or oneself) to become dependent (on something, esp a narcotic drug)
noun (ˈædɪkt)
- a person who is addicted, esp to narcotic drugs
- informal a person who is devoted to somethinga jazz addict
1530s, “delivered over” by judicial sentence; past participle adjective from addict (v.). Modern sense of “dependent” is short for self-addicted “to give over or award (oneself) to someone or some practice” (1560s; exact phrase from c.1600); specialization to narcotics dependency is from c.1910.
1909, in reference to morphine, from addict (v.).
1530s (implied in addicted), from Latin addictus, past participle of addicere “to deliver, award, yield; give assent, make over, sell,” figuratively “to devote, consecrate; sacrifice, sell out, betray” from ad- “to” (see ad-) + dicere “say, declare” (see diction), but also “adjudge, allot.” Earlier in English as an adjective, “delivered, devoted” (1520s). Related: Addicted; addicting.
n.
- One who is addicted, as to narcotics or a compulsive activity.