poor man's cocaine
- noun
- NSFW
:
cocaína de pobre
- Many people call energy drinks the poor man's cocaine because of their stimulating effects.
Examples
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He joked that strong coffee was his daily dose of poor man's cocaine.
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After pulling an all-nighter, she reached for poor man's cocaine to stay awake during her shift.
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Many people consider coffee a poor man's cocaine.
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Some athletes use caffeine as a poor man's cocaine to boost performance.
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Caffeine is often referred to as the poor man's cocaine because of its stimulant effects.
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Many students rely on energy drinks, calling them the poor man's cocaine for late-night studying.
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Some people consider nicotine to be the poor man's cocaine due to its stimulating properties.
How Strong
Surface Forms
Morphology
This uses the productive construction 'poor man's X' to mean a cheaper or inferior substitute for X, so a learner who knows 'poor', 'man' and 'cocaine' can reasonably infer that something (e.g., coffee) is being described as a low-cost stand‑in for cocaine's stimulant effects. However, the possessive idiomality and cultural metaphorical sense (substitute/inferior version) is not fully literal and may require prior exposure for clear understanding, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Poor man's cocaine comes from the image of a poor person using something cheaper than cocaine, like strong coffee or an energy drink, to get a quick boost. So, it now means 'a cheap or easy way to get energy'.