purple heart
See also: Purple Heart and purpleheart
English
Etymology
From the color of the pills.
Noun
purple heart (plural purple hearts)
- The drug phenobarbitone when taken recreationally.
- (slang, historical) A drinamyl tablet.
- 1963 March 27, “Drug pills eaten like sweets, says detective”, in The Guardian:
- Detective Peter Goodall said the source of the tablets had not been traced. "Purple heart" or drinamyl tablets, were a stimulant drug and habit-forming.
- 1972, Ray Davies (lyrics and music), “Big Black Smoke”, performed by The Kinks:
- And every penny she had / Was spent on purple hearts and cigarettes
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Further reading
- Jonathon Green (2023), “purple hearts n.”, in Green's Dictionary of Slang