Word.ws English Dictionary

copium

/ˈkəʊp.i.əm//ˈkoʊp.i.əm/

copium noun: a metaphorical opiate taken in order to cope with a loss or disillusionment, often leading to one becoming detached from reality and in denial of their situation.

Noun

copium (uncountable)

  1. (Internet) A metaphorical opiate taken in order to cope with a loss or disillusionment, often leading to one becoming detached from reality and in denial of their situation.
    • Cryptobros have been huffing copious amounts of copium after yesterday's devastating Bitcoin crash.
    • Copium2003 June 17, Keak da Sneak, (album name)
  2. Material used as a naive coping mechanism for facts one knows are not true.
    • We both know that's just copium for the fact you're losing.
    • Some of this is simply dead ender-claptrap: straw-grasping and copium for Trumpists who are struggling to assimilate the new reality. But some of it is racist conspiracy theory, and Sky's new business model means that Australia is effectively exporting it.2020 December 20, Jason Wilson, “Sky News Australia is increasingly pushing conspiracy theories to a global audience online”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media...

Origin of copium

Blend of cope (“delusion, coping mechanism”) + opium. First cited usage points back to the album entitled Copium released by American rapper Keak da Sneak in 2003. The term was popularized in 2020 by a reaction image of Pepe the Frog hooked up to a gas cylinder labeled "copium". Sometimes reanalyzed as cope + -ium.

Words that rhyme with copium

Questions about copium

What does copium mean?
Copium means a metaphorical opiate taken in order to cope with a loss or disillusionment, often leading to one becoming detached from reality and in denial of their situation.
What part of speech is copium?
Copium is a noun.
How do you pronounce copium?
Copium is pronounced /ˈkoʊp.i.əm/ (US).

Words near copium in the dictionary

  1. copiousnesses
  2. copist
  3. copists
  4. copita
  5. copitas
  6. copium
  7. Copjecian
  8. coplaintiff
  9. coplaintiffs
  10. Coplan
  11. coplanar

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: copium (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-copium.wav, en-uk-copium.ogg.

Cite this entry: “copium.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/copium. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.