addict

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun someone who is so ardently devoted to something that it resembles an addiction
noun someone who is physiologically dependent on a substance; abrupt deprivation of the substance produces withdrawal symptoms
verb to cause (someone or oneself) to become dependent (on something, especially a narcotic drug)

Borrowed from Latin addictus, past participle of addīcō (“deliver; devote; surrender”), from ad- (“to, towards, at”) + dīcō (“say; declare”)

And he knew, what a number of Bram's enemies knew, that the dead scientist had been a morphine addict. — Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1930, Unknown
28.] nature has therefore favoured it with this privilege, that there is nothing we can do so long, nor any action to which we more frequently and with greater facility addict ourselves. — Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete, Michel de Montaigne
He gave up law early, and these days he elbowed the mob in the Treasury bond futures pit with the grim determination of a horse addict shoving his way to the two-dollar window. — The Samurai Strategy, Thomas Hoover

nut, freak, junkie, junky

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