Word.ws English Dictionary

trip sitter

trip sitter noun: a person who watches over a person who is using drugs.

Noun

trip sitter (plural trip sitters)

  1. (recreational drugs) A person who watches over a person who is using drugs.
    • As a psychedelic researcher, she was a “trip sitter” the straight person charting drug trips and documenting the findings.1996 June 7, Kathleen McCloud, “‘Artists choice’ promotes idea of mentoring debuts lesser-known work”, in The Santa Fe New Mexican, page 6
    • In some cases, a trip sitter may be a medical professional, such as nurses used in psychedelic research or a therapist who performs psychedelic psychotherapy. […] However, the most common trip sitter is a friend or family member whom the drug user trusts.2009, Sean Williams, The Big Picture, page 30

Forms of trip sitter

pluraltrip sitters
alternative formtrip-sitter

Origin of trip sitter

Of trip (“period of drug-induced reverie”) + sitter (“one who watches or tends something”). Attested from the 20th century; see quotations below.

Questions about trip sitter

What does trip sitter mean?
Trip sitter means a person who watches over a person who is using drugs.
What part of speech is trip sitter?
Trip sitter is a noun.
What is the plural of trip sitter?
The plural of trip sitter is trip sitters.

Words near trip sitter in the dictionary

  1. trip sat
  2. trip sill
  3. trip sills
  4. trip sit
  5. trip sits
  6. trip sitter
  7. trip sitters
  8. trip sitting
  9. trip slip
  10. trip slips
  11. trip switch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trip sitter (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: “trip sitter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/trip_sitter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.