dope out

Word History: The word dope originated in American English and is a borrowing of the Dutch word doop, "sauce." (New York City was once a Dutch colony, New Amsterdam, and many words originally distinctive to American English, like boss and cookie, were borrowed from Dutch colonists in the region.) Throughout the 1800s, dope meant "gravy," and in the North Midland United States, particularly Ohio, dope is still heard as the term for a topping for ice cream, such as chocolate syrup or fruit sauce. Also in the 1800s, the meaning of dope was extended to include various medicinal mixtures or syrups, including the syrups from which soda-fountain drinks like Coca-Cola were prepared. A continuation of this usage survives in the South, particularly in South Carolina, where dope refers to the carbonated soft drink that elsewhere in the United States is called cola. Dope was especially used of those medicinal preparations that produced a stupefying effect, and it even became a slang term for the dark, molasses-like form of opium that was smoked in opium dens. The common modern meanings of dope, "a narcotic substance" and "narcotics considered as a group," developed from this use of the word.