tranq

English

Alternative forms

• trank

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɹæŋk/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æŋk

Noun

tranq (countable and uncountable, plural tranqs)

1. (countable, slang) Clipping of tranquilizer.
   • 1982, Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi:

     "I gave her a tranq," he said with anguish. "She asked for one and I found this bottle in the medicine cabinet and gave it to her."

   • 1992, “Alice”, performed by The Sisters of Mercy:

     She needs you like she needs her tranqs / To tell her that the world is clean.

   • 2016 March 29, N/A, “Escaped zebra drowns at golf course: Zebra gets tranqed, dies in Japan - TomoNews”, in TomoNews US‎^[1] (Usenet):

     The cops were forced to call in reinforcements to shoot the zebra with tranquilizer darts in an effort to calm him down. Unfortunately, the tranqs did the opposite, setting the zebra off in a panic, as it ran into a nearby lake.

2. (uncountable, slang) The veterinary analgesic drug xylazine, used as a street drug.
   • 2023 December 17, Olivia Empson, “‘Tranq tourism’: alarm in Philadelphia as TikTokers travel to film drug users”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     In viral videos uploaded to social channels such as TikTok, tranq users are filmed when they are in a physical state in which they are unlikely to be able to consent.

Related terms

• tranx; see more at tranquilizer

Verb

tranq (third-person singular simple present tranqs, present participle tranqing, simple past and past participle tranqed)

1. (slang, transitive) Clipping of tranquilize.
   • 2007, Michele LeBlanc, Belt Buckles and Pajamas, page 65:

     He was about to stand up and start on another rant, which only would have led to Sam tranqing him.

   • 2008, Charlotte Boyett-Compo, In the Arms of the Wind, page 144:

     He fumbled at the dart but the needle was barbed and wouldn't come out. His fingers slid from it as a powerful numbness began to creep over his extremities. “Got him!” the man who had tranqed him shouted to his buddies.

2. (slang, intransitive) To use the drug called tranq. (Can we add an example for this sense?)