elephant juice

elephant juice noun: used as a stimulant for horses.

Noun

elephant juice (uncountable)

(slang) Used as a stimulant for horses.
- Etorphine, a morphine analog, is a powerful stimulant known as "elephant juice" because it is used to tranquilize large circus animals. Given in small dosage, it acts as a stimulant. "It ranges up to 10,000 times more powerful than morphine," the New York Daily News quoted one expert as saying. "If...1985 November 28, Bill Marx, “‘Elephant juice’ drug found in Breeders' Cup turf horse”, in Orlando Sentinel, archived from the original on 05 Jan 2016
- You mean that elephant juice they use to dope horses?1988, David Foster, The Pale Blue Crochet Coathanger Cover
(slang) Taken as a drug by humans.
- To take a ride, one sucked Elephant juice through the reed until the water level disappeared beneath the husk. As applause and cheers rang to the ceiling, the host added water to the Elephant for the next partygoer […]1967, Louis E. Lomax, Thailand: The War that Is, the War that Will Be, Random House, page 142
- Etorphine […] Informal Names: Elephant Juice […] When humans in an experiment received etorphine they experienced euphoria and described the drug as feeling like morphine. Researchers who administered etorphine in that experiment concluded that the drug is likely to be abused. Misuse has been noted...2002, Richard Lawrence Miller, The Encyclopedia of Addictive Drugs, Westport, Conn.; London: Greenwood Press, →ISBN, pages 157–158

Interjection

(rare, slang) Used as a substitute for I love you.

Synonyms:

elephant shoes

Examples of elephant juice in a sentence

Etorphine, a morphine analog, is a powerful stimulant known as "elephant juice" because it is used to tranquilize large circus animals.1985 November 28, Bill Marx, “‘Elephant juice’ drug found in Breeders' Cup turf horse”, in Orlando Sentinel, archived from the original on...
ETORPHINE (elephant juice) A tranquiliser for large animals such as elephants, it can be a most powerful stimulant if applied correctly to horses.2004 December 28, Andrew Eddy, “The drugs challenge”, in The Age, archived from the original on 23 Aug 2014:
Etorphine […] Informal Names: Elephant Juice […] When humans in an experiment received etorphine they experienced euphoria and described the drug as feeling like morphine.2002, Richard Lawrence Miller, The Encyclopedia of Addictive Drugs, Westport, Conn.; London: Greenwood Press, →ISBN, pages 157–158:

Synonyms of elephant juice

elephant shoes

Origin of elephant juice

From its use as a tranquilizer for large animals.

When spoken with no sound, the phrase generates a similar pattern of lip movements to saying "I love you". It was popularised by the 1999 film Elephant Juice.

Questions about elephant juice

What does elephant juice mean?: Elephant juice means used as a stimulant for horses.
How do you use elephant juice in a sentence?: Etorphine, a morphine analog, is a powerful stimulant known as "elephant juice" because it is used to tranquilize large circus animals.
What part of speech is elephant juice?: Elephant juice can be a noun or an interjection.

Words near elephant juice in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: elephant juice (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-elephant juice.ogg.

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