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cocaina

cocaine

noun koh-kah-EE-nah Rare

Origin: From Quechua kuka (the coca plant) + chemical suffix -ina.

Usage Note

Cocaina is the standard Italian term for the drug cocaine. Informally it is shortened to coca, which can also refer to Coca-Cola — context always disambiguates. Legal and medical texts use the full form. The adjective cocainico and noun cocainomane ('cocaine addict') are derived forms frequently encountered in news reporting.

Examples

"La polizia ha sequestrato un chilo di cocaina."

Natural Translation

The police seized a kilogram of cocaine.

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