to chasing the dragon
1
9.9
- idiom
- NSFW
:
perseguir al dragón
- Many young people in the city have lost their way, chasing the dragon and falling into addiction.
Examples
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After years of chasing the dragon, she was finally ready to seek help for her addiction.
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You chasing the dragon?
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Back a couple of centuries ago, we didn't have much of a choice for pain (I guess unless you went chasing the dragon in an opium den).
Blog text (26) -
Jean warms the plate until the coke crackles, and then "chases the dragon," sucking the smoke through a straw.
Fiction book (1996) -
While researchers have found that heroin sniffing is not a stable pattern of use in England, where smoking or "chasing the dragon" and injection predominate (Strang et al., 1997), the European context may vary due to both cultural differences and differences in drug markets.
Academic text (2004) -
He spent his nights chasing the dragon, hoping for a high that always seemed out of reach.
Synonyms
322
1.0
To chase someone or something without stopping to catch them
To keep trying to feel the same excitement you felt the first time, often by taking risks or using drugs
To try to reach a very difficult or impossible goal for a long time
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The dominant idiomatic meaning—using/opiate inhalation—is a specialized, culture-specific sense that cannot be derived from 'chase' + 'dragon', so a B1 learner knowing the words would not infer the drug-related meaning. Although the secondary figurative sense of pursuing an elusive goal is somewhat relatable from the constituents, the primary usage is idiomatic and unpredictable, making the expression opaque to learners.
Etymology
The idiom chasing the dragon may come from drug users who heat heroin on a spoon and try to chase the rising smoke with a straw, the moving cloud looking like a small dragon. So the phrase now means 'using drugs by breathing in the smoke' and also 'pursuing an impossible high or goal that harms you'.