drink the Kool-Aid
drink the Kool-Aid verb: to come under the influence of a leader, organization, or movement to the point of believing uncritically in an espoused idea or ideology.
Verb
drink the Kool-Aid (third-person singular simple present drinks the Kool-Aid, present participle drinking the Kool-Aid, simple past drank the Kool-Aid, past participle drunk the Kool-Aid)
- To come under the influence of a leader, organization, or movement to the point of believing uncritically in an espoused idea or ideology.
- Outside the Convention Center, meanwhile, protesters on either side of police barricades waved signs, chanted, sang songs and heckled people walking inside to attend the fundraiser. Signs included "Limp Wrists Make Strong Fists," "I'd Rather Be Dead Than Born Again" and "Abort the Moral Majority."...1982 April 24, Claude Peck, “Demo Greets Falwell During Visit to Minneapolis”, in Gay Community News, page 3
- Netscape, while willing to drink the open source Kool Aid, realized there were other important issues in the commercial sector.1999, Robert Young, Wendy Goldman Rohm, Under the Radar: How Red Hat Changed the Software Business
Examples of drink the Kool-Aid in a sentence
- Signs included "Limp Wrists Make Strong Fists," "I'd Rather Be Dead Than Born Again" and "Abort the Moral Majority." One of the more original chants was "Don't drink the Kool-Aid!"1982 April 24, Claude Peck, “Demo Greets Falwell During Visit to Minneapolis”, in Gay Community News, page 3:
- They "drink the Kool-Aid", as Lampley terms it, meaning that they buy into the Olympic experience.2008, Andrew C Billings, Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television:
Forms of drink the Kool-Aid
| third-person singular present | drinks the Kool-Aid |
|---|---|
| present participle | drinking the Kool-Aid |
| past | drank the Kool-Aid |
| past participle | drunk the Kool-Aid |
| alternative form | drink the Kool Aid |
Origin of drink the Kool-Aid
Referring to the Peoples Temple cult movement, whose members committed mass murder–suicide in 1978 by drinking a powdered drink mix (popularly believed to be Kool-Aid, but in fact Flavor Aid) laced with cyanide poison.
Questions about drink the Kool-Aid
- What does drink the Kool-Aid mean?
- Drink the Kool-Aid means to come under the influence of a leader, organization, or movement to the point of believing uncritically in an espoused idea or ideology.
- How do you use drink the Kool-Aid in a sentence?
- Signs included "Limp Wrists Make Strong Fists," "I'd Rather Be Dead Than Born Again" and "Abort the Moral Majority." One of the more original chants was "Don't drink the Kool-Aid!"
- What part of speech is drink the Kool-Aid?
- Drink the Kool-Aid is a verb.
- What is the past tense of drink the Kool-Aid?
- The past tense of drink the Kool-Aid is drank the Kool-Aid.
Words near drink the Kool-Aid in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: drink the Kool-Aid (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.
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Cite this entry: “drink the Kool-Aid.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drink_the_kool-aid. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.