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Cocaine - Etymology, Origin & Meaning
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Origin and history of cocaine

cocaine(n.)

alkaloid obtained from the leaves of the coca plant, 1874, from Modern Latin cocaine (1856), coined by Albert Niemann of Gottingen University from coca (from Quechua cuca) + chemical suffix -ine (2). A medical coinage, the drug was used 1870s as a local anaesthetic for eye surgery, etc. "It is interesting to note that although cocaine is pronounced as a disyllabic word it is trisyllabic in its formation" [Flood]. Cocainism "addiction to cocaine" is recorded by 1885.

also from 1874

Entries linking to cocaine

coke(n.2)

slang shortened form of cocaine (q.v.), by 1902, American English.

novocain(n.)

also novocaine, 1905, originally a trademark name for procaine (by Lucius & Brüning, Hoechst am Main, Germany), from combining form of Latin novus "new" (see new) + -caine, abstracted from cocaine. As a local anaesthetic, it began as a substitute for cocaine.

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Trends of cocaine

adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

More to explore

flaky
crazy" first recorded 1959, said to be American English baseball slang, but probably from earlier druggie slang flake "cocaine...
snow
As slang for "cocaine" it is attested from 1914....
Coca-Cola
It contained minute amounts of cocaine until 1909....
beautician
In this case, it seems, the operator painted on or injected into the patron's facial blemish a 4-per-cent cocaine solution...
speed
Speedball "mix of cocaine and morphine or heroin" is recorded from 1909....
rock
Century Dictionary] The meaning "precious stone," especially a diamond, is by 1908, U.S. slang; the sense of "crystallized cocaine...
tornado
1550s, ternado, navigator's word for violent windy thunderstorm in the tropical Atlantic, probably a mangled borrowing from Spanish tronada "thunderstorm," from tronar "to thunder," from Latin tonare "to thunder" (see thunder (n.)). Also in 17c. spelled tornatho, tornathe, turnad
blow
"move air, produce a current of air," Middle English blouen, from Old English blawan "to blow (of the wind, bellows, etc.), breathe, make an air current; kindle; inflate; sound" a wind instrument (class VII strong verb; past tense bleow, past participle blawen), from Proto-German
bowl
"round, low vessel to hold liquids or liquid food," Old English bolla "pot, cup, bowl," from Proto-Germanic *bul- "a round vessel" (source also of Old Norse bolle, Old High German bolla), from PIE root *bhel- (2) "to blow, swell." Formerly also "a large drinking cup," hence figur
C
third letter of the Latin alphabet. Alphabetic writing came to Rome via the southern Etruscan "Caeretan" script, in which gamma was written as a crescent. Early Romans made little use of Greek kappa and used gamma for both the "g" and "k" sounds, the latter more frequently, so th

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