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Glite Dictionary
🐝 A stinging wasp 💊 A sleeping drug
yellow jacket

yellow jacket

9.9
A strong medicine like Nembutal used to make people sleep
  • noun
  • /ˈjɛloʊ ˈdʒækɪt/
  • NSFW
translation icon : barbitúrico
  • After taking the prescribed dose of the yellow jacket, she felt a wave of calmness wash over her.

Examples

  • In a corner of the windshield, a spindly-legged yellow jacket mumbled to itself.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Hank pulls a pill bottle out of his pocket, shakes a "yellow jacket" out, and pops it into his mouth.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • The doctor recommended a yellow jacket for its effectiveness in reducing anxiety before surgery.

  • He was given a yellow jacket to help ease the severe muscle spasms he was experiencing.

Synonyms

Nembutal
vsyellow jacket
  • Archaic
3 9.9

A strong medicine doctors give to make people sleep or calm them

is an informal name used especially for that trademark drug
pentobarbital
vsyellow jacket
  • Specialized
3 9.8

A strong drug that makes people or animals sleep, stops severe seizures, and can humanely kill animals

is an informal name referring specifically to this chemical drug
pentobarbital sodium
vsyellow jacket
  • Specialized
8.2

A strong drug that makes a person sleep or relax and stops seizures

is an informal name used especially for this salt form of the drug

Surface Forms

yellow jacket singular
yellow jackets plural

Morphology

yellow + jacket

The drug sense cannot be derived from the constituents 'yellow' (a color) and 'jacket' (an outer garment or, in compound use, the wasp 'yellowjacket'); these literal meanings do not suggest a barbiturate. This is a slang/idiomatic naming and would not be predictable to a B1 learner who only knows the individual words.

Etymology

The noun yellow jacket was also a slang name for a barbiturate pill because some tablets had a yellow coating like a small jacket, so people used the same name for the drug that helped them 'sleep'.