Word.ws English Dictionary

purple drank

purple drank noun: a recreational drug based on cough syrup, popular in the hip-hop community in the southern United States.

Noun

purple drank (uncountable)

  1. (slang) A recreational drug based on cough syrup, popular in the hip-hop community in the southern United States.
    • The infamous purple drank made me dizzy and sick, but I loved its aftertaste.2007, Kenny Attaway, Slum Beautiful, page 40
    • Instead of listening to the message, people find it easier to blame the messenger. Hip-hop may have promoted purple drank, but it did not create it. OxyContin abuse became a national emergency without a backing soundtrack.2011, Kenaz Filan, The Power of the Poppy: Harnessing Nature's Most Dangerous Plant Ally, page 211
    Synonyms:
    lean, sizzurp, Texas tea

Synonyms of purple drank

Origin of purple drank

From purple + drank (“drink”).

Questions about purple drank

What does purple drank mean?
Purple drank means a recreational drug based on cough syrup, popular in the hip-hop community in the southern United States.
What part of speech is purple drank?
Purple drank is a noun.

Words near purple drank in the dictionary

  1. purple boxes
  2. purple coral
  3. purple corals
  4. purple death
  5. Purple Dragon Book
  6. purple drank
  7. purple dye murex
  8. Purple Earth hypothesis
  9. purple emperor
  10. purple emperors
  11. purple everlasting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: purple drank (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-purple drank.ogg.

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