hell dust
- noun
- NSFW
:
heroína
- Dealers often refer to heroin as hell dust on the streets.
Examples
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He became addicted to hell dust after trying it just once.
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The police seized packets of hell dust during the raid on the apartment.
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He was addicted to hell dust for years.
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Many users find hell dust difficult to quit.
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Dealers often refer to heroin as hell dust on the streets.
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He became addicted to hell dust after trying it just once.
-
The police seized packets of hell dust during the raid on the apartment.
Synonyms
34
9.9
An illegal drug, heroin, often injected or smoked by users
15
9.9
A street name for the drug heroin
2
9.9
A very strong illegal drug called heroin that makes people addicted
2
9.9
A strong illegal drug that people usually inject or smoke
1
9.9
A street name for the illegal drug heroin
A street name for the illegal drug heroin
Surface Forms
Morphology
hell + dust
The constituents 'hell' (intense suffering/evil) and 'dust' (a powdery substance) give a suggestive image of a harmful powder, so a learner might infer it's some bad drug. However, identifying the specific referent 'heroin' is a slang-specific leap that a B1 learner would not reliably make without exposure, so the relation is only partially predictable.
Etymology
Hell dust may come from a simple image: hell stands for danger and dust suggests a fine powder like the drug. So people use hell dust to mean 'heroin', a dangerous powder sold on the street.