noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A state whose economy depends heavily on narcotics and other drugs.

   "With the collapse of the government, there is a real danger the country will become a narco-state."

2. 2
   an area that has been taken over and is controlled and corrupted by drug cartels and where law enforcement is effectively nonexistent wordnet

Example

More examples

"With the collapse of the government, there is a real danger the country will become a narco-state."

Etymology

From narco- + state.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.