Roofie

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A powerful sedative drug, flunitrazepam, sometimes slipped into a drink to incapacitate a person without their knowledge ; a single pill or tablet containing that sedative
2. The benzodiazepine sedative flunitrazepam, often secretly dosed into someone's beverage to render them unconscious ; a small pill of this drug used for such purposes
3. Flunitrazepam, a fast-acting sedative misused to drug victims covertly and cause memory loss ; the individual tablet form in which this substance is commonly sold

Etymology: Rohypnol is the brand name of flunitrazepam, a benzodiazepine sedative first marketed in the 1970s, and "roofie" is a slang shortening of that trade name. The clipped form comes from the drug's nickname, which people used as a casual label for the pill itself. The slang took hold in the 1990s, when the drug became associated with being secretly slipped into drinks to incapacitate people. The spelling is the puzzling part. The brand name begins with "R", and the "f" in "roofie" has no clear source in the trade name. One speculative idea links it to "Rufalin", another name associated with the drug, but that link is not established, so the "f" remains unexplained. What is clear is that the word's shape comes from the brand, with the spelling shifting as it spread through informal speech.

Synonyms: flunitrazepam, Rohypnol, date-rape drug