Meanings
- slanguncommonuncountableThe displacement or distortion of time while under the influence of narcotics.
Dope has a life of its own. There is dope-time, dope-weather, dope-sleep. All one does is wait. The feeling of kicking a dope habit cannot be described.
1990, Bo Houston, Horse and Other Stories, page 903 more examples
Set over the period of one day, 'real time' is relentlessly giving way to dope time. As with Walter Benjamin's stoned perception in the Marseilles café (or stoned perception for any of us), time here charts its own terrains, liberating itself from a subordination to movements, objects or spaces.
2001, Screen - Volume 42, page 370time had started to become something of an elastic concept. I was operating on dope time. The only time that registered with me was the endless stretches in between hits on the pipe, or between each line of heroin.
2008, Jason Peter, Tony O'Neill, Hero of the Underground: A MemoirJodi Brooks (2001) notes the importance of time in many 'gangsta' films, including Friday, which, through marijuana consumption of Craig and Smokey, oscillates between 'real time' and 'dope time' ( p. 370).
2016, Lucy Bolton, Julie Lobalzo Wright, Lasting Screen Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure, page 59Synonyms: doper time
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe displacement or distortion of time while under the influence of narcotics.
Cite this entry
dope time. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dope%20time
“dope time.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dope%20time. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dope time,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dope%20time.
Source: dope time on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.