Lichtdom

Lichtdom (pronounced lish-dumm)

A visual technique using light to emulate large-scale architecture.

1934: The construct of the German Lichtdom was licht + dom (literally “cathedral of light”).  Licht (variously light, effortless, freely, easy, free; luminous; eye, clear, sparse, bright, light, shiny, light colored; distinct, plain, obvious, explicit, lucid, straightforward) was from the Middle High German lieht and the Middle German līcht), from the Old High German lioht, from the Old Saxon lioht, from the Proto-West Germanic leuht, from the Proto-Germanic leuhtą, from the primitive Indo-European lewktom.  The descendants include the Dutch licht and the English light.  The obsolete alternative spelling was Liecht.  The colloquial uses include describing candles and (in hunting), the eye of (especially ground) game.  The usual plural is Lichter but Lichte operates as a plural when speaking of candles.  Dom (cathedral; church; big church building; dome, cupola) was from the French dôme, from the Italian duomo, from the Latin domus (ecclesiae (literally “house (of the church)”)), a calque of the Ancient Greek οἶκος τῆς ἐκκλησίας (oîkos tês ekklēsías).  Lichtdom is a compound noun.

Reichsparteitag (Party Rally) Nuremberg, 1934.

Of all that was designed by Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945), little was built and less remains.  Although he would later admit the monumentalism of the Nazi architectural model was a mistake, his statements of contrition seemed always tinged with a regret that in the years to come, all he was likely to be remembered for was his “immaterial lightshow”, used as a dramatic backdrop for the party rallies held at the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg.  Compared with what, had things worked out, he’d have been able to render in steel, concrete, marble and granite, Lichtdom (cathedral of light) was of course ephemeral but it’s undeniably memorable.  Speer created the effect by placing the Luftwaffe’s (the German air force) entire stock of 152 1500 mm (60 inch) searchlights around the stadium’s perimeter and maximized the exposure of the design by insisting as many events as possible be conducted in darkness.  The other other advantage was the interplay of light and shadow disguised the paunchiness of the assembled Nazis, many of whom were flabbier than the party’s lean, “Aryan ideal” (by which they meant something stereotypically “Nordic”) but that was anyway suspect; one joke spread by the famously cynical Berlin natives noting that empirically a better description of the Nazi reality was "as blonde as Hitler, as fit as Göring, as tall as Goebbels and as sane as Hess".  The use by the Nazis of the term “Aryan race” to describe people of “pure Germanic descent” was later extended to encompass “all non-Jewish Caucasians” but it was a pseudoscientific concept and one of a number of acts of Nazi misappropriation.  Aryan was a Sanskrit word from the Proto-Indo-Iranian áryas (the original Indo-Iranian autonym) and it entered English in the nineteenth century as a technical term used in structural linguistics, initially to describe Indo-Iranian languages and later extended to most Indo-European languages.

Reichsparteitag (Party Rally) Nuremberg, 1936.

The spectacle left few unimpressed.  Sir Neville Henderson (1882-1942; UK ambassador to Germany 1937-1939), the UK’s admittedly impressionable ambassador described the ethereal atmosphere as “…both solemn and beautiful… like being in a cathedral of ice.”  History though has preferred “cathedral of light” and brief views are captured in Hans Weidemann’s (1904-1975) Festliches Nürnberg (Festival of Nuremberg; a 1937 propaganda film chronicling the 1936 and 1937 events) which is mercifully shorter than Leni Riefenstahl’s (1902–2003) better-known works although the poor quality of the film stock used can only hint at the majesty achieved but the use of Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Master-Singers of Nuremberg, 1868) as a musical accompaniment helps.  Riefenstahl actually claimed she suggested the idea to Speer and a much better record exists in her film Olympia (1938) which documented the 1936 Summer Olympics at which the technique was also used.  Architects had of course for millennia been interested in light but apart from those responsible for the placement of stained glass windows and other specialties, mostly they were concerned with function rather than anything representational.  It was the advances the nineteenth century in the availability and luminosity of artificial light which allowed them to use light as an aesthetic element not limited candles or the time of day and thus the angle of sunlight.

Fragment from Olympia (1938) with Lichtdom.

Speer had plenty of time to reflect on the past while serving twenty years in Berlin’s Spandau prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity, a sentence he was lucky to receive.  His interest in light persisted and with unrestricted access to the FRG's (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany, 1949-1990) technical libraries, he assembled close to a thousand pages of notes for a planned book on the history of the window in European buildings, musing on variables such as the cost and availability of glass at different times in different places, the shifting cost of the labor of glaziers & carpenters and market interventions such as England’s notorious “window tax” which resulted in some strange looking structures.  Ever drawn to the mathematics he’d in his youth intended to study until forced to follow his father into architecture, he pondered the calculations which might produce the changes in “what value a square meter of light had at different periods” and what this might reveal beyond the actual buildings.

Lindsay Lohan in a drone (UAV; unmanned aerial vehicle)) light show over Marina Bay, Singapore, generated by Google's Gemini generative AI (artificial intelligence).

It was a shame the book was never written.  He recalled also the effects he applied to the German pavilion he built for the Paris World’s Fair in 1937, bathing it at night with “…skilfully arranged spotlights.  The result was to make the architecture of the building emerge sharply outlined against the night, and at the same time to make it unreal... a combination of architecture and light.”  It was at the Paris event the German and Soviet pavilions sat directly opposed, something of a harbinger and deliberately so.  He was nostalgic too about the Lichtdom, thinking it recalled “a fabulous setting, like one of the imaginary crystal palaces of the Middle Ages” although wryly he would note history would remember his contributions to his profession only for the ephemeral, the “…idea that the most successful architectural creation of my life is a chimera, an immaterial phenomenon.”  Surprisingly, for someone who planned the great city of Germania (the planned re-building of Berlin) with its monumental structures, the news that all that remained in the city of his designs were a handful of lampposts (which stand to this day) seemed something almost amusing.  In all his post-war writings, although there’s much rejection as “a failure” of the plan of Germania and the rest of the “neo-Classical on a grand scale” which characterized Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) vision of representational architecture, it’s not hard to detect twinges of regret for the unbuilt and sometimes he admitted it.  As he was contemplating a return to the drawing board upon his impending release, he noted: “Although I have had enough of monumental architecture and turn my mind deliberately to utilitarian buildings, it sometimes comes hard for me to bid goodbye to my dreams of having a place in the history of architecture. How will I feel when I am asked to design a gymnasium, a relay station, or a department store after I planned the biggest domed hall in the world?  Hitler once said to my wife: ‘I am assigning tasks to your husband such as have not been given for four thousand years. He will erect buildings for eternity!’  And now gyms!”  As things transpired, not even a gym was built and he instead re-invented himself as an author, writing his history in text.  Of that piece of curated architecture, some were fooled and some not but what he wrote remains (selectively) useful.

Tribute in Light annual commemoration, New York.

Dramatic though it was, the exact effect Speer achieved in the 1930s is so tainted by its association with the Nazis that few have attempted to recycle the motif although one pop-star used the effect as a visual backdrop in 1976 when he was going through “his right-wing phase” which later he came to think of as “an unpleasantness” and preferred “never to speak of it again”.  Those affected badly by having seen “something nasty in the woodshed” will understand how he felt.  Isolated or clustered beams are however often used and one display is an annual “Tribute in Light” to commemorate the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  It demonstrates the way the dynamics can be used; depending on conditions, the light can bounce off the clouds, creating a very different effect than that afforded by a clear sky and it’s possible to render in those clouds a virtual oculus.

Tribute in Light annual commemoration, New York: The oculus effect.  Note the circling birds.

One problem with high intensity light the Tribute in Light has high-lighted is the way temporarily it messes each year with the migration of hundreds of thousands of songbirds.  The memorial uses 88 focused spotlights, the beams of which reach some 6¼ miles (10 km) into the sky and are visible from as far away as 60 miles (100 km).  Traditionally, the display was illuminated from dusk to dawn but of late it’s been switched off for 20 minute intervals in deference to the songbirds which in mid-September make their long flight from breeding grounds in Canada's boreal forests to their winter homes in the southern US, Mexico, and Central & South America.  They fly mostly by night and it’s thought they’ve evolved to navigate by the stars but, unfortunately, are much attracted to light.  The Tribute in Light having more light than anything else at altitude, the display seems to confuse the birds and it was noted the death toll from birds crashing into New York windows increased every 9/11.  Observers found there was also an element of sound involved, the birds in the light issuing the call associated with distress, this tending to draw more songbirds to the light.

Tribute in Light annual commemoration, New York: Songbirds "caught" in the light.

Researchers used radar to quantify the effect.  Typically, the skies within a ¼ mile (400 metre) of the un-illumined memorial contained around 500 birds but when lit, within 20 minutes, there were almost 16,000.  Extrapolating the data, it was estimated some 1.1 million migrating songbirds had been affected between 2008-2016, even accounting for the lights since 2009 having been shut-off for 20 minutes whenever volunteer birders count more than 1,000 in the beams.  It’s thought the death–toll from birds crashing into buildings is relatively low but there’s concern also the creatures are compelled to expend energy when circling the site, burning up vital resources needed for their long flights.  Shutting off the lights is thought to allow the birds to re-focus on their guiding stars to find their bearings and continue the migration south.  Birders would prefer searchlights not be used at all and some sites have agreed not to use them during the migration season but there’s obviously much sensitivity around the 9/11 commemoration.  Human development of the built environment has for a long time influenced the migration path, the radar data confirming birds disproportionately choose to fly over cities, the researchers referring to the “almost magnetic pull of birds to light.”  We need to remember it's their planet too.

Defiant

Defiant (pronounced dih-fahy-uhnt)

Characterized by defiance or a willingness to defy; boldly resistant or challenging.

1830s: From the French défiant, from the Old French, present participle of the verb défier (to challenge, defy, provoke), the construct thus def(y) + “i” + -ant.  Defy dates from the mid thirteenth century and was from the Middle English defien, from the Old French desfier, from the Vulgar Latin disfidare (renounce one's faith), the construct being dis- (away) + fidus (faithful).  The construct in French was thus des- (in the sense of negation) + fier (to trust), (from the Vulgar Latin fīdāre, from the Classical Latin fīdere (fidelity),  In the fourteenth century, the meaning shifted from “be disloyal” to “challenge”.  The suffix –ant was from the Middle English –ant & -aunt, partly from the Old French -ant, from Latin -āns; and partly (in adjectival derivations) a continuation of the use of the Middle English -ant, a variant of -and, -end, from the Old English -ende ( the present participle ending).  Extensively used in the sciences (especially medicine and pathology), the agent noun was derived from verb.  It was used to create adjectives (1) corresponding to a noun in -ance, having the sense of "exhibiting (the condition or process described by the noun)" and (2) derived from a verb, having the senses of: (2a) "doing (the verbal action)", and/or (2b) "prone/tending to do (the verbal action)".  In English, many of the words to which –ant was appended were not coined in English but borrowed from the Old French, Middle French or Modern French.  The negative adjectival forms are non-defiant & undefiant although there is a kind of middle ground described by quasi-defiant, semi-defiant & half-defiant, the latter three sometimes used in military conflicts where, for whatever reason, it’s been necessary (or at least desirable) for a force to offer a “token resistance” prior to an inevitable defeat.  The adjective over-defiant refers to a resistance or recalcitrance, the extent or duration of which is not justified by the circumstances; in such cases the comparative is “more defiant” and the superlative “most defiant”.  Defiant is a noun & adjective, defiantness is a noun and defiantly is an adverb; the noun plural is defiants.

Defiance in politics: use with caution

The commonly used synonyms include rebellious, direful, truculent, insolent, rebellious, recalcitrant, refractory, contumacious & insubordinate but in diplomacy, such words must be chosen with care because what is one context may be a compliment, in another it may be a slight.  This was in 1993 discovered by Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996) who labelled Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad (b 1925; prime minister of Malaysia 1981-2003 & 2018-2020) one of the “recalcitrant” when the latter declined to attend a summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).  For historic reasons, Dr Mahathir was sensitive to the memories of the imperialist oppressors telling colonized people what to do and interpreted Mr Keating’s phrase as a suggestion he should be more obedient (the most commonly used antonym of defiant, the others including obedient & submissive).  Things could quickly have been resolved (Dr Mahathir of the “forgive but not forget” school of IR (international relations)) but, unfortunately, Mr Keating was brought up in the gut-wrenching “never apologize” tradition of the right-wing of the New South Wales (NSW) Labor Party so what could have been handled as a clumsy linguistic gaffe was allowed to drag on.

Circa 1933 Chinese propaganda poster featuring a portrait of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (Chiang Chung-cheng).  Set in an oval frame below flags alongside stylized Chinese lettering, the generalissimo is depicted wearing his ceremonial full-dress uniform with decorations.

The admission an opponent is being “defiant” must also sometimes be left unsaid.  Ever since Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975) in 1949 fled mainland China, settling on and assuming control of the island of Taiwan, the status of the place has been contested, most dramatically in the incidents which flare up occasionally in the in the straits between the island and the mainland, remembered as the First (1954–1955), Second (1958) and Third (1995-1996) Taiwan Strait Crises which, although sometimes in retrospect treated as sabre rattling or what Hun Sen (b 1952; prime minister (in one form or another) 1985-2023) might have called “the boys letting off steam”, were at the time serious incidents, each with the potential to escalate into something worse.  Strategically, the first two crises were interesting studies in Cold War politics, the two sides at one stage exchanging information about when and where their shelling would be aimed, permitting troops to be withdrawn from the relevant areas on the day.  Better to facilitate administrative arrangements, each side’s shelling took place on alternate days, satisfying honor on both sides.  The other landmark incident was China’s seat at the United Nations (UN), held by the Republic of China (ROC) (Taiwan) between 1945-1971 and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (the mainland) since.

Jiefang Taiwan, xiaomie Jiangzei canyu (Liberate Taiwan, and wipe out the remnants of the bandit Chiang) by Yang Keyang (楊可楊) and Zhao Yannian (趙延年). 

A 1954 PRC propaganda poster printed as part of anti-Taiwan campaign during first Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954-1955), Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek depicted as a scarecrow erected on Taiwan by the US government and military. Note the color of the generalissimo’s cracked and disfigured head (tied to a pole) and the similarity to the color of the American also shown.  The artists have included some of the accoutrements often associated with Chiang’s uniforms: white gloves, boots and a ceremonial sword.  The relationship between Chiang and the leaders of PRC who defeated his army, Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong. 1893–1976; paramount leader of PRC 1949-1976) and Zhou Enlai (1898–1976; PRC premier 1949-1976) was interesting.  Even after decades of defiance in his renegade province, Mao and Zhou still referred to him, apparently genuinely, as “our friend”, an expression which surprised both Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) and Henry Kissinger (b 1923; US national security advisor 1969-1973 & secretary of state 1973-1977) who met the chairman and premier during their historic mission to Peking in 1972.

A toast: Comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (left) and  Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (right), celebrating the Japanese surrender, Chongqing, China, September 1945.  After this visit, they would never meet again.

Most people, apparently even within the PRC, casually refer to the place as “Taiwan” but state and non-governmental entities, anxious not to upset Beijing, use a variety of terms including “Chinese Taipei” (the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football) & its continental confederations (AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC and UEFA)), “Taiwan District” (the World Bank) and “Taiwan Province of China” (the International Monetary Fund (IMF)).  Taiwan’s government uses an almost declarative “Republic of China” which is the name adopted for China after the fall of the Qing dynasty and used between 1912-1949 and even “Chinese Taipai” isn’t without controversy, “Taipei” being the Taiwanese spelling whereas Beijing prefers “Taibei,” the spelling used in the mainland’s Pinyin system.  There have been variations on those themes and there’s also the mysterious “Formosa”, use of which persisted in the English-speaking world well into the twentieth century, despite the Republic of Formosa existing on the island of Taiwan for only a few months in 1895.  The origin of the name Formosa lies in the island in 1542 being named Ilha Formosa (beautiful island) by Portuguese sailors who had noticed it didn’t appear on their charts.  From there, most admiralties in Europe and the English-speaking world updated their charts, use of Formosa not fading until the 1970s.

All that history is well-known, if sometimes subject to differing interpretations but some mystery surrounds the term “renegade province”, used in recent years with such frequency that a general perception seems to have formed that it’s Beijing’s official (or at least preferred) description of the recalcitrant island.  That it’s certainly not but in both the popular-press and specialist journals, the phrase “renegade province” is habitually used to describe Beijing’s views of Taiwan.  Given that Beijing actually calls Taiwan the “Taiwan Province” (sometimes styled as “Taiwan District” but there seems no substantive difference in meaning) and has explicitly maintained it reserves the right to reclaim the territory (by use of military invasion if need be), it’s certainly not unreasonable to assume that does reflect the politburo's view but within the PRC, “renegade province” is so rare (in Chinese or English) as to be effectively non-existent, the reason said to be that rather than a renegade, the island is thought of as a province pretending to be independent; delusional rather than defiant.  Researchers have looked into the matter when the phrase “renegade province” was first used in English when describing Taiwan.  There may be older or more obscure material which isn’t indexed or hasn’t been digitized but of that which can be searched, the first reference appears to be in a US literary journal from 1973 (which, it later transpired, received secret funding from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)).  It took a while to catch on but, appearing first in the New York Times in 1982, became a favorite during the administration of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) and has been part of the standard language of commentary since.  Diplomats, aware of Beijing's views on the matter, tend to avoid the phrase, maintaining the “delusional rather than defiant” line.

Picture of defiance: Official State Portrait of Vladimir Putin (2002), oil on canvas by Igor Babailov (b 1965).

The idea of a territory being a “renegade province” can be of great political, psychological (and ultimately military) significance.  The core justification used by Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) when explaining why his “special military operation” against Ukraine in 2022 was not an “invasion” or “war of aggression” (he probably concedes it may be a “state of armed conflict”) was that he denied Ukraine was a sovereign, independent state and that Volodymyr Zelenskyy (b 1978, president of Ukraine since 2019) was not a legitimate president.  In other words, Ukraine is merely a region of the modern Russia in something of the way it was once one of the 15 constituent SSRs (Soviet Socialist Republic) of the Soviet Union.  Although the Kremlin doesn’t use the phrase, in Mr Putin’s world view, Ukraine is a renegade province and he likely believes that applies also to the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia) and possibly other former SSRs.  Lake many, the CCP is watching events in Ukraine with great interest and, as recent “exercises” seem to suggest the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have sufficiently honed their techniques to execute either a blockade (which would be an “act of war”) or a “quarantine” (which would not), the attention of Western analysts is now focused on the hardly secret training being undertaken to perfect what’s needed for the triphibious operations demanded by a full-scale invasion.  The US think-tanks which think much about this possibility have suggested “some time” in 2027 as the likely point at which the military high command would assure the CCP’s central committee such a thing is possible.  What will happen will then depend upon (1) the state of things in the PRC and (2) the CCP’s assessment of how the long-term “strategic ambiguity” of Washington would manifest were an attempt made to finish the “unfinished business” of 1949.

Lindsay Lohan, who has lived a life of defiance.

The objectification of women’s body parts has of course been a theme in Western culture since at least Antiquity but rarely can as much attention been devoted to a single fingernail as the one photographed on Lindsay Lohan’s hand in July 2010 (during her “troubled starlet” phase).  The text printed on the fingernail was sufficiently explicit not to need a academic deconstruction of its alleged meaning, given image was taken when she sitting in court listening to a judge sentence her for one of her many transgressions; the consensus was the text was there to send a “defiant message” the internet’s collective conclusion (which wasn’t restricted to entertainment and celebrity sites) presumably reinforced by the nail being on the middle finger.  Ms Lohan admitted to fining this perplexing, tweeting on X (then known as Twitter) it was merely a manicure and had “…nothing to do w/court, it's an airbrush design from a stencil.”  So, rather than digital defiance, it was fashion.  Attributing a motif of defiance to Ms Lohan wasn’t unusual during “troubled starlet” phase, one site assessing a chronological montage of her famous mug shots before concluding with each successive shot, “Lindsay's face becomes more defiant — a young woman hardening herself against a world that had turned her into a punch-line”.

The Bolton-Paul Defiant (1939-1943)

The Parthian shot was a military tactic, used by mounted cavalry and made famous by the Parthians, an ancient people of the Persian lands (the modern-day Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979).  While in real or feigned retreat on horseback, the Parthian archers would, in full gallop, turn their bodies backward to shoot at the pursuing enemy.  This demanded both fine equestrian skills (a soldier’ hands occupied by his bows & arrows) and great confidence in one's mount, something gained only by time spent between man & beast.  To make the achievement more admirable still, the Parthians used neither stirrups nor spurs, relying solely on pressure from their legs to guide and control their galloping mounts and, with varying degrees of success, the tactic was adopted by many mounted military formations of the era including the Scythians, Huns, Turks, Magyars, and Mongols.  The Parthian Empire existed between 247 BC–224 AD.  The Royal Air Force (RAF) tried a variation of the Parthian shot with Bolton-Paul Defiant, a single-engined fighter and Battle of Britain contemporary of the better remembered Spitfire and Hurricane.  Uniquely, the Defiant had no forward-firing armaments, all its firepower being concentrated in four .303 machine guns in a turret behind the pilot.  The theory behind the design dates from the 1930s when the latest multi-engined monoplane bombers were much faster than contemporary single-engined biplane fighters then in service. The RAF considered its new generation of heavily-armed bombers would be able to penetrate enemy airspace and defend themselves without a fighter escort and this of course implied enemy bombers would similarly be able to penetrate British airspace with some degree of impunity.

Bolton-Paul Defiant.

By 1935, the concept of a turret-armed fighter emerged.  The RAF anticipated having to defend the British Isles against massed formations of unescorted enemy bombers and, in theory, turret-armed fighters would be able approach formations from below or from the side and coordinate their fire.  In design terms, it was a return to what often was done early in the World War I (1914-1918), though that had been technologically deterministic, it being then quite an engineering challenge to produce reliable and safe (in the sense of not damaging the craft's own propeller) forward-firing guns.  Deployed not as intended, but as a fighter used against escorted bombers, the Defiant enjoyed considerable early success, essentially because at attack-range, it appeared to be a Hurricane and the German fighter pilots were of course tempted attack from above and behind, the classic hunter's tactic.  They were course met by the the Defiant's formidable battery.  However, the Luftwaffe learned quickly, unlike the RAF which for too long persisted with their pre-war formations which were neat and precise but also excellent targets.  Soon the vulnerability of the Defiant resulted in losses so heavy its deployment was unsustainable and it was withdrawn from front-line combat.  It did though subsequently proved a useful stop-gap as a night-fighter and provided the RAF with an effective means of combating night bombing until aircraft designed for the purpose entered service.

The Trump class "battleships"

In a surprise announcement, the Pentagon announced the impending construction of a “new battleship class” the first of the line (USS Defiant) to be the US Navy’s “largest surface combatant built since World War II [1939-1945]”.  The initial plans call for a pair to be launched with a long-term goal of as many as two dozen with construction to begin in 2030.  Intriguingly, Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) revealed that while the Department of Defense’s (it’s also now the Department of War) naval architects would “lead the design”, he personally would be involved “…because I’m a very aesthetic person.”  That may sound a strange imperative when designing something as starkly functional as a warship but in navies everywhere there’s a long tradition of “the beautiful ship” and the design language still in use, although much modified, is recognizably what it was more than a century earlier.  The Secretary of the Navy certainly stayed on-message, announcing the USS Defiant would be “…the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans”, adding that components for the project would “be made in every state.”  It won't however be the widest because quirk of ship design in the US Navy is that warships tend to be limited to a beam (width) of around 33 metres (108 feet) because that’s the limit for vessels able to pass through the Panama Canal.

Depiction of Trump class USS Defiant issued by the US Navy, December, 2025.

By comparison with the existing surface fleet the 35,000 ton Defiant will be impressively large although, by historic standards, the largest (non-carrier) surface combatants now in service are of modest dimensions and displacement.  The largest now afloat are the 15,000-ton Zumwalt class destroyers (which really seem to be cruisers) while the 10,000 ton Ticonderoga class cruisers (which really are destroyers) are more numerous.  So, even the Defiant will seem small compared with the twentieth century Dreadnoughts (which became a generic term for “biggest battleship”), the US Iowa class displacing 60,000 ton at their heaviest while the Japanese Yamato-class weighted-in at 72,000.  Even those behemoths would have been dwarfed by the most ambitious of the H-Class ships in Plan-Z which were on German drawing boards early in World War II.  Before reality bit hard, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) left physics to the engineers and wasn't too bothered by economics.  After being disappointed the proposed successors to the Bismarck-class ships would have the bore of their eight cannons (the main armament) increased only from 380 mm (15 inch) to 405 (16), he ordered OKM (Oberkommando der Marine; the Naval High Command) to design bigger ships.  

That directive emerged as the ambitious Plan Z which would have demanded so much steel, essentially nothing else in the Reich could have been built.  Although not one vessel in Plan Z ever left the slipway (the facilities even to lay down the keels non-existent), such a fleet would have been impressive, the largest (the H-44) fitted with eight 508 mm (20 inch) cannons.  Even more to the Führer’s liking was the concept of the H-45, equipped with eight 800 mm (31.5 inch) Gustav siege guns.  However, although with guns, cars, tanks, buildings and much else, Hitler found it hard to resist gigantism, the bitter experience of war at sea convinced him the battleship was not only obsolete but had become an expensive strategic liability.  After the Bismarck was lost in May 1941, Hitler made his change of view clear to Großadmiral Erich Raeder (1876–1960; head of the German Navy 1928-1943), paraphrased by historians usually as: “I was always a supporter of the big ships but they've had their day, the risk of attack by air is too great.”  That ended the prospect of any more being built but further failures darkened even more the Führer’s view and in 1943 he demanded the Navy scrap the entire surface fleet, devote all construction resources to Unterseeboots (literally “under-sea boat” ie submarine and referred to usually as “U-boat) and re-allocate the crews to ground warfare or the U-boats.  On that, Raeder’s successor persuaded him to relent because merely by inertly existing, the big ships did have a strategic effect of forcing the Royal Navy to keep on stand-by a battle-fleet which could otherwise usefully be deployed.  The decision during the 1930s to build the big ships certainly had a profound effect on the path of the war.  Had U-boat construction been afforded a priority in 1937-1939, the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) could have entered World War II with the ability permanently to have 100 U-boats engaged in high-seas raiding rather than barely the dozen initially possible and the early course of the war might radically have been different.  In was another indication of the way German policy had been directed by the assumption a war with the UK could be avoided or at least long-delayed.  Germany indeed entered the war without a single aircraft carrier (the only one laid down never completed), such was the confidence the need to confront the Royal Navy either would never happen or was years away.

The US Navy in 1940 began construction of six Iowa class battleships but only four were ever launched because it had become clear the age of the aircraft carrier and submarine had arrived and the last battleship launched was the Royal Navy’s HMS Vanguard which entered service in 1946.  Although the admirals remained fond of the fine cut of her silhouette on the horizon, to the Treasury (an institution in the austere, post-war years rapidly asserting its authority over the Admiralty) the thing was a white elephant, something acknowledged even by the romantic, battleship-loving Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who, when in November, 1953 planning a trip to Bermuda for a summit meeting with Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US POTUS 1953-1961), opted to fly because “it costs Stg£30,000 if we go by Vanguard, and only £3,000 by air.”  In 1959, Vanguard was sold for scrap and broken up the next year while the last of the Iowa class ships were decommissioned in 1992 after having spent many years of their life in a non-active reserve.  Defiant is of course a most Churchillian word and after World War I, he was asked by a French municipality to devise the wording for its war memorial.  He proposed:

IN WAR: RESOLUTION

IN DEFEAT: DEFIANCE

IN VICTORY: MAGNANIMITY

IN PEACE: GOODWILL

At the time, old Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) wasn’t feeling much magnanimity towards the Germans (he called them: le boche) and nor was he much in the mood to extend any goodwill so Churchill’s suggestion was rejected.  

Depiction of Trump class USS Defiant issued by the US Navy, December, 2025.

The conventional wisdom therefore was the days of the big warships were done and the Soviet Navy’s curious decision in the 1980s to lay down five (four of which were launched) Kirov class battlecruisers seemed to confirm the view.  Although the Kremlin called the ships тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер (heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers), admiralties in the West, still nostalgic lot, choose to revive the old name “battlecruiser”.  The battlecruiser (essentially a battleship with less armor) was a brainchild of the naval theorists of the early twentieth century but while the concept was sound (and in practice may have proved so if the theory had been followed at sea) but in service was a disappointment and none were commissioned after 1920 until the Soviets revived the idea.  As recently as 2018, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) sources were sceptical any of the Russian ships would ever return to service but in 2025 the Admiral Nakhimov (ex-Kalinin) emerged from a long and expensive re-fit & modernization to serve as the world’s biggest warship.  Although fast and heavily armed, concern remains about her vulnerability to missiles and torpedoes.

Depiction of Trump class USS Defiant issued by the US Navy, December, 2025.

The US Navy seems confident about the protection afforded by the Trump class’s systems, claiming “the battleship [the Pentagon’s term] will be capable of operating independently, as part of a Carrier Strike Group, or commanding its own Surface Action Group depending on the mission and threat environment.”  In other words, unlike an aircraft carrier, the security of the vessel does not depend on a flotilla of destroyers and other smaller escort vessels.  The first of the Trump class is projected to cost between US$10-15 billion although, on the basis of experience, few will be surprised if this number “blows out”.  The Trump class will be the flagships for the Navy’s “Golden Fleet” initiative (an old naval term dating from days of the Spanish colonial Empire and nothing to do with Mr Trump’s fondness for the metal).  In an age in which small, cheap, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, usually referred to as drones) have revolutionized warfare (on land and at sea), the return of the big ships is as interesting as it was unexpected and analysts are already writing their assessments of the prospects of success.

Although the concept wasn’t new, it was late in the nineteenth century naval architects began to apply the word “class” systematically to group ships of the same design, the pioneers the Royal Navy but other powers soon adopted the practice.  It had long been the practice for warships to be constructed on the basis of substantially replicating existing designs and some truly were “identical” to the extent a series would now be called a “class” but before the terminology became (more or less) standardized, warships usually were described by their “Rate” or “Type” (first-rate ship of the line, corvette, frigate etc) but, in the usual military way, there was also much informal slang including phrases such as “the Majestic battleships” or “ships of the Iron Duke type”.  The crystallization of the “class” concept was really a result of technological determinism as the methods developed in factories which emerged during the industrial revolution spread to ship-building; steam power, hulls of iron & steel and the associated complex machinery made design & construction increasingly expensive, thus the need to amortize investment and reduce build times by ordering ships in batches with near-identical specifications.

Navies in the era were also becoming more bureaucratic (a process which never stopped and some believe is accelerating still) and Admiralties became much taken with precise accounting and doctrinal categorisation.  The pragmatic admirals however saw no need to reinvent the wheel, “class” already well-established in engineering and taxonomy, the choice thus an obvious administrative convenience.  The “new” nomenclature wasn’t heralded as a major change or innovations, the term just beginning to appear in the 1870s in Admiralty documents, construction programmes and parliamentary papers in which vessels were listed in groups including Devastation class ironclad turret ships (laid down 1869), Colossus class battleships (laid down 1879) and Admiral class battleships (1880s).  In recent history tests, warships prior to this era sometimes are referred to as “Ship-of-the-line class”, “Three decker class” etc but this use is retrospective.  The French Navy adopted the convention almost simultaneously (with the local spelling classe) with Imperial Germany’s Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) following in the 1890s with Klasse.  The US Navy was comparatively late to formalise the use and although “class” in this context does appear in documents in the 1890s, the standardization wasn’t complete until about 1912.

As a naming convention (“King George V class”, “Iowa class” etc), the rule is the name chosen is either (1) the first ship laid down, or (2) the lead ship commissioned.  According to Admiralty historians, this wasn’t something determined by a committee or the whim of an admiral (both long naval traditions) but was just so obviously practical.  It certainly wasn’t an original idea because the term “class” was by the late nineteenth century well established in industrial production, civil engineering, and military administration; if anything the tradition-bound admirals were late-adopters, sticking to their old classificatory habit long after it had outlived its usefulness.  With ships becoming bigger and more complex, what was needed was a system (which encompassed not only the ships but also components such as guns, torpedoes, engines etc) which grouped objects according to their defined technical specification rather than their vague “type” (which by then had become most elastic) or individual instances; naval architecture had entered the “age of interchangability”.

A docked Boomin' Beaver.

It’s good the US Navy is gaining (appropriately large) “Trump Class” warships (which the president doubtless will call “battleships” although they’re more in the “battlecruiser” tradition).  Within the fleet however there are on the register many smaller vessels and the most compact is the 19BB (Barrier Boat), a specialized class of miniature tugboat used deploy and maintain port security booms surrounding Navy ships and installations in port.  Over the last quarter century there have been a dozen-odd commissioned of which ten remain in active service.  Unlike many of the Pentagon’s good (and expensive) ideas, the Barrier Boats were a re-purposing of an existing design, their original purpose being in the logging industry where they were used to manoeuvre logs floating along inland waterways.  In that role the loggers dubbed them “log broncs” because the stubby little craft would “rear up like a rodeo bronco” when spun around by 180^o.  Sailors of course have their own slang and they (apparently affectionately) call the 19BBs the “Boomin’ Beaver”, the origin of that being uncertain but it may verge on the vulgar.  It’s not known if President Trump is aware of the useful little BB19s but if brought to his attention, he may be tempted to order two of them re-named “USS Joe Biden” and “USS Crooked Hillary” although, unlike those reprobates, the Boomin’ Beavers have done much good work for the nation.

The Arc de Triomphe, Paris (left), Donald Trump with model of his proposed arch, the White House, October, 2025 (centre) and a model of the arch, photographed on the president's Oval Office desk (right).  Details about the arch remain sketchy but it's assumed (1) it will be "big" and (2) there will be some gold, somewhere.

As well as big ships (and the big Donald J Trump Ballroom already under construction where the White House’s East Wing once stood), Mr Trump is also promising a “big arch”.  A part of the president’s MDCBA (Make D.C. Beautiful Again) project, the structure (nicknamed the “Triumphal Arch” and in the style of the Arc de Triomphe which stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle (formerly the Place de l’Étoile), the western terminus of the avenue des Champs-Élysées) is scheduled to be completed in time to celebrate the nation’s 250^th anniversary on 4 July 2026.  Presumably, on that day, it will be revealed the official name is something like the “Donald J Trump Sestercentennial Arch” which will appear on the structure in large gold letters.  The arch is said to be “privately funded”, using money left over from what was donated to build the ballroom, a financing mechanism which has attracted some comment from those concerned about the “buying of influence”.

Adolf Hitler's (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) sketch of an arch (1926, left) and Hitler, Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) and others examining Speer's model of the arch, presented 20 April, 1939 upon the occasion of the Führer’s 50^th birthday (right; note the pattern in carpet).  As usual, the Führer reviewed the display of gifts, surveying the statutes, paintings and porcelain (both good and kitsch) with interest or amusement but the one to which he kept returning was the four-metre model of the arch and that evening, several times he would return “with visible emotion” to examine the details.

A model of Germania.  To give some indication of the scale, within the dome of the huge meeting hall (at top of image), St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome would have fitted several times over; its diameter of the dome would have been 250 metres (825 feet).

Commissioned to honor those who fought and died for France during the French Revolutionary (1792-1802) and Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), construction of the Arc de Triomphe (officially the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile) absorbed 30-odd years between 1806-1836, as a piece of representational architecture the structure is thought perfectly proportioned for assessment by the human eye and perhaps for this reason it has been admired by many.  As early as 1926, Adolf Hitler sketched his vision of a grand arch for Berlin, while bitter experience taught him the big warships were a bad idea because of their vulnerability to air attack, he never lost his enthusiasm for megalomania in architecture and in Albert Speer he found the ideal architect.  Noting the dimensions in Hitler’s sketch, Speer responded with something in the spirit of their blueprint for Germania.  Hitler’s planned the rebuilding of Berlin to be complete by 1950, less than ten years after the expected victory in a war which would have made him the master of Europe from the French border to the Ural mountains (things didn’t work out well for him).  While the 50 metre (163 feet) tall Arc de Triomphe presented a monumental appearance and provided a majestic terminus for the Champs Elysees, Speer’s arch stood 117 meters (384 feet) in height but even though obviously substantial, it would have been entirely in scale with the rest of Germania, the whole place built in a way to inspire awe simply by virtue of sheer size.

Dope

Dope (pronounced dohp)

(1) Any thick liquid or pasty preparation, as a lubricant, used in preparing a surface.

(2) A combustible absorbent material (historically sawdust or wood-pulp), used to absorb and hold the nitroglycerine in the manufacture of dynamite (used also of the processes in the manufacture of other products).

(3) An absorbent material, such as sawdust or wood pulp, used to hold the nitroglycerine in dynamite

(4) In aeronautics (and other fields), any of various varnish-like preparations (made by dissolving cellulose derivatives in a volatile solvent) used for coating a fabric (wings, fuselage etc), in order to render it stronger and more taut, aerodynamic and waterproof.

(5) Any of a number of preparations, applied to fabric in order to improve strength, tautness, etc

(6) A chemically similar product used to coat the fabric of a balloon to reduce gas leakage.

(7) An additive used to improve the properties of something (such as the “anti-knock” compounds added to gasoline (petrol).

(8) A thick liquid (typically a lubricant), applied to a surface.

(9) In slang, any narcotic or narcotic-like drug taken to induce euphoria or some other desired effect (and eventually to satisfy addiction); now used most of cannabis although other terms are now more common.

(10) Any illicit drug.

(11) In sport, a “performance enhancing drug” (PED; steroids, peptides etc), taken by athletes.

(12) In horse racing, a narcotic or other drug given surreptitiously to a horse to improve or retard its performance in a race.

(13) In firearms, ballistic data on previously fired rounds, used to calculate the required hold over a target.

(14) In slang, information, data, knowledge or news (sometimes used especially of confidential information).

(15) In slang, someone thought unintelligent, stupid or unresponsive etc.

(16) In US slang (mostly south of the Mason-Dixon Line, especially Appalachia), a carbonated, flavored and sweetened drink (used especially of cola-flavored sodas (soft drinks)).

(17) In US slang (East North Central Division of the Mid-West, especially Ohio), a sweet syrup used as a topping for ice cream.

(18) To affect with dope or drugs.

(19) To add a narcotic or other drug to something.

(20) To give a drug to (an athlete or horse), so as to affect performance in a race (for better or worse) or other competition.

(21) To take illicit drugs (in any context)

(22) In engineering to apply or treat a surface with dope.

(23) In electronics, to add or treat a pure semiconductor with a dopant.

(24) In slang, photographic developing solution

(25) In slang, great; excellent (always regionally variable and now les common).

1807: Apparently a creation of US English meaning “sauce, gravy; any thick liquid”, from the Dutch (dialectical) doop (thick dipping sauce), a derivative of dopen or doopen (to dip, baptize; deep), from the Middle Dutch dopen, from the Old Dutch dōpen, from the Frankish daupijan, from the Proto-Germanic daupijaną.  By extension, by the late nineteenth century it came generally to be used of any mixture or preparation of unknown ingredients producing a thick liquid.  The use of doop in the sense “narcotic drug” was derived ultimately from the viscous opium juice (the drug of choice of the well-connected in Ancient Greece) but in English was in use by at least 1899 and came from the smoking of semi-liquid opium preparations.  The verb use in the sense of “administer a drug to” appeared in print in 1889.  The idea of “insider information” was in use by at least 1901 and is thought to come from the knowledge of knowing which horse in a race had been doped (thus predicting it would run faster or slower than its form would suggest), this sense dating from 1900.  From this idea (inside information) developed the US slang “to dope out” (figure out, clarify).    The sense of “an unintelligent person” may have been used as early as the 1840s and came from the stupefying effects of opium, those intoxicated displaying obvious impaired cognitive facilities.  The word was related to the English dip and the German taufen (to baptize) but not to dopamine which came from chemistry, the construct being (DOPA (dihydroxyphenylalanine) +‎ -amine.

Unlike some constructions in English (eg domelessness (absence of a dome) or the informal gaynessness (“excessive” gayness)), there seems no recorded use of dopnessness.  For the commoly used “dopey”, the comparative is dopier and the superlative dopiest.  The use of “doper” to describe both: (1) someone who administers dope and (2) someone to whom dope is administered differs from the convention used in many words in English (eg payer vs payee) so the non-standard noun dopee can also be a synonym of doper.  Presumably, a useful distinction would be a dopee being one whose dope has been administered by another while a doper is one who self-administers.  Dope is a noun, verb & adjective, dopiness & dopeness are nouns, doper is a noun & adjective, doping is a noun & verb, doped is a verb & adjective and dopey (sometimes spelled dopy (the derived forms following this)) dopier & dopiest are adjectives, the noun plural is dopes.  Acronymfinder list eleven DOPEs, only two of which are narcotic related.

DOPE: Drug Overdose Prevention and Education (various organizations).
DOPE: Department of Public Enterprise.
DOPE: Data on Personal Equipment (sniper rifle data logging).
DOPE: Death or Prison Eventually (movie).
DOPE: Data on Previous Engagement (military sniper term).
DOPE: Drugs Oppress People Everyday.
DOPE: Dartmouth Oversimplified Programming Experiment.
DOPE: Director of Product Enhancements (Dilbert).
DOPE: Displacement of breathing tube, Obstruction, Pneumothorax, Equipment failure.
DOPE: Data Observed from Previous Engagements (ballistics).
DOPE: Director of Performance Enhancement (New York Yankees).

The use by the New York Yankees MLB (Major League Baseball) franchise seems daring given the existence of the Independent Program Administrator (IPA) of the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program (JBTPT) which monitors the use of PEDs in the sport.  The JBTPT jointly is run by the MLB and the MLBPA (Major League Baseball Players Association) and the IPA oversees all drug testing, collection and enforcement.  Pleasingly, the JBTPB often is referred to as the “Major League Joint Drug Program”.

Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams, published in 1995 on Bastille Day (14 July). 

First published in 1989, the once widely-syndicated "corporate life" Dilbert cartoon strip dealt with engineers, programmers and such working in a corporation run by those without a technical background, the exemplar of the latter being the “pointy haired boss”.  The cartoon was the work of Scott Adams (b 1957) who in 2023 was “cancelled” after posting a video in which he called “Black Americans”, critical of the slogan “It's okay to be white” because of its association with white supremacist ideology, a “hate group”, suggesting “White Americans” should “get the hell away from” them.  Mr Adams later disavowed racism and moved his output on-line.

On the Dilbert website, Mr Adams stated: “No news about public figures is ever true and in context” and explained his cancellation thus: “If you believe the news, it was because I am a big ol' racist.”  Fleshing that out, he added: “If you look into the context, the point that got me cancelled is that CRT [Critical Race Theory], DEI [Diversity, Equity & Inclusion] and ESG [Environmental, Social and Governance] all have in common the framing that White Americans are historically the oppressors and Black Americans have been oppressed, and it continues to this day.  I recommended staying away from any group of Americans that identifies your group as the bad guys, because that puts a target on your back.  I was speaking hyperbolically, of course, because we Americans don't have an option of staying away from each other. But it did get a lot of attention, as I hoped.  (More than I planned, actually).”  Dlibert devotees prepared to separate art from artist were advised: “Disgraced and canceled cartoonist Scott Adams has moved his work and upgraded it to a spicier version entitled Dilbert Reborn.”

A "Dope Mobile Bookstore" is scheduled to go on-line in December 2025 and there really was briefly a "Dope Mobile" (left) which was an on-line store for mobile phone accessories and should not be confused with a "dopemobile" which is a "dope dealer's" car.  Especially in black, a Chrysler 300 (2005-2023) is almost a cliché as a dopemobile and this 2009 model (on flatbed truck, right) was seized by New Zealand police from the estate of a deceased "dope dealer" (a profession with an unusually high death rate).  The informal term "dopemoble" can mean either (1) a vehicle in which a "dope dealer" transacts "dope deals" or (2) a vehicle believed or proved to have been purchased using the proceeds of "dope dealing".  

Purple Haze, Blue Cheese and more.  The proprietors of Amsterdam’s coffee shops have always come up evocative and fanciful names for dope.  One has to have the coffee one drinks and one has to have the weed one smokes.

In derived terms and idiomatic use, “dope” appears often but because of the dual meaning (narcotics and a varnish-like substance), the same term can mean very different things so context must be noted when assessing a meaning.  A “dope stick” (also as dopestick) can describe (1) a stick or applicator for spreading dope (a viscous liquid or paste used in preparing a surface) on a surface or, in slang (2) a cigar or cigarette, (3) a pipe, (4) a marijuana joint or something similar laced with cocaine or other drug or (5) a penis suffering from priapism (a condition in which the erect penis does not return to its flaccid state despite the absence of both physical and psychological stimulation) as a result of the use of cocaine or heroin.  The condition may sound desirable but is both potentially painful and risks long-term tissue damage.

Color chart, circa 1940. Some of the pigments available for Berry Brothers "Berryloid Pigmented Dopes".

“Dope dick” (impotence induced by heavy drinking or other substance abuse) is a synonym of other slang forms including “coke dick”, “crystal dick”, “whisky dick” & “brewer's droop”.  A “dope whore” is someone addicted to narcotics who finances the habit through prostitution, the synonyms being “coke whore”, “smack slut”, “crack whore” etc.  To “smoke one's own dope” means “to believe one’s own publicity, propaganda, lies or posturing; the synonym is “to drink one's own Kool-Aid”.  For those who like to make such connections, Kool-Aid is the official soft-drink of the US state of Nebraska, otherwise famous only for being the home of billionaire investor Warren Buffett (b 1930).  To “dope out” means “to figure out, to find out, find, decipher”, something Mr Buffet certainly did of investing for profit although wryly, he notes that often when folk ask him the “secret of his success” and he tells them how his strategy worked over decades, there’s an obvious sense of disappointment because what people really want to know is “how can I get rich overnight?”  He assures all he doesn’t “have the dope” on that.

Punters dope sheet (form guide), 2024 Melbourne Cup.

A “dope sheet” is a summary (ordinarily in the form of a codified, printed or digital document), containing salient facts and background information concerning a person, activity, or other subject matter.  The origin is thought to be the publications associated with horse racing (the name derived from the suspicion the most accurate indicator of a horse’s performance was whether or not it had been doped with some substance to make it run faster or slower) in which was summarized information about the horses running in certain races.  Such publications are now known variously as scratch sheets, tip sheets, firm guides, best bets etc.  Beyond gambling, “dope sheets” (a term which became misleading because some publications could be quite thick volumes) came to be used in fields as varied as automotive repair and especially in photography, film & animation; in the latter were listed the designer’s detailed instructions for artists & editors (known also as an “exposure sheet”).

Lindsay Lohan gives CNN the dope on dope use during her "troubled starlet" phase.

In the world of narcotics users (there really are many quite separate populations in “doperdom”) dope is sold by a “dope dealer”, “dope-runner”, “dope-pedlar”, “dope-pusher”, “dope-seller” or “dope-man”, sometimes from a “dope-house” whereas a “dopester” is a “street-level” trader who may be operating independently but is typically an agent on commission (paid sometimes “in kind”) and often operating from a "dopemobile").  Both retailers sell to “dope fiends”, “dope chicks”, “dope heads” etc (those who variously use or abuse) while a “dope dog” is a canine used by law enforcement officers to “sniff-out” dope.  The “dope house” must however not be confused with the “dope-shop” which was the part of the factory (typically one manufacturing aircraft) where dope was applied to the fabric laid over the spars of an airframe.  In the “dope house” was employed the “doper” who applied the dope to the fabric (dated) and again the meaning is shared with those involved with narcotics or PEDs.  If the “dope deal” couldn't for whatever reason be executed, the customer was left “dopeless” and those who over-consume could become “dope sick” (in withdrawal from “dope use”) which is different from the potentially fatal “dope overdose”.  “Dope time” & “doper time” both reference the way one’s perception of the passing of time changes when one is under the influence of narcotics.  It’s along the lines of “country mile” (typically somewhat longer than 1760 yards) or “Microsoft minutes” (referencing the dialog boxes which appeared in MS-Windows during certain operations saying something like “17 minutes remaining” which could mean anything from a few seconds to many hours).

The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade by Professor Benjamin T. Smith.

The title's play on words is this being “the dope” on “the dope trade” out of Mexico.  In the well-populated sub-culture of narcotics use (illicit and not), there exists a bewildering array of names, vernacular and slang, some now registered trade-marks as many jurisdictions have relaxed the prohibition on “soft drugs’ but “dope” remains the most useful generic “cover-all” term.  Nor is the use of “dope” as a generic new, Lord Moran (Charles Wilson, 1882-1977; president of the Royal College of Physicians 1941-1949, personal physician (1940-1965) to Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) in his diary (Churchill taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran: The Struggle for Survival, 1940–1965 (1966)) noting on 2 December 1952, during a trans-Atlantic flight:

“This may be my last journey with Winston.  We began life humbly enough, in an unheated Lancaster bomber, and end it, twelve years later, in high state in the strato-cruiser Canopus. Messages no longer pass to the captain asking at what height we are flying; 18,000 feet or 11,000 feet (both were recorded last night), it is all one to us, pressurized at 5,000 feet.  Most of the seniors and quite a number of the juniors came to me last night for sleeping pills - this weak kneed generation that needs dope for a few hours in the air.”

Boeing 377 Stratocruiser in United Airlines livery in 63-passenger configuration including sleeping berths, a state room and lounge bar.

Lord Moran was of course well-acquainted with dope, having for years suppled Churchill with “downers” (barbiturates) to help him sleep and “uppers” (amphetamines, then commonly called “pep pills”) to perk him up, Churchill ignoring the apothecary’s descriptions and dubbing the various tablets with terms from his own ad-hoc pharmacological vocabulary including “Lord Morans”, “majors”, “minors”, “reds”, “greens”, “babies” and “midgets”, all based either on the pill’s appearance or its potency, the latter established empirically.   In fairness to the Lord Moran's doped airline passengers, with a cruising speed (depending on conditions) between 300–340 mph (480–550 km/h), trans-Atlantic flight time for the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was typically 10 hours (eastbound) to 11-12 hours (westbound), a duration compelling until the new generation of jetliners cut the trip to 6–7 hours.  A civilian version of the C-97 Stratofreighter military heavy-transporter (developed from the B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber), the Stratocruiser was, when its first test-flight was undertaken in 1947, the world biggest airliner and could carry up to 100 passengers in a multi-deck configuration although most were configured for fewer and outfitted with the luxuries which appealed to the demographic then able to afford to travel by air.  Very modern when first it flew, there were no "doped fabric" surfaces on the Stratocruiser, the fuselage, wings and tail made almost wholly from an aluminum alloy (mostly duralumin); it was thus, in the parlance of the day, an "all metal" craft.  However, despite extensive development, the problems with the 28-cylinder Pratt & Whitney radial engines were never wholly resolved and while they came to be practical for military use, they remained maintenance-intensive so operating costs were high and between 1949-1963 only 55 Stratocruisers were ever in service.

Berry Brothers advertising (1929) of their Berryloid Pigmented Dope, illustrated by applying avian coloring to aircraft.  This was Number 10 of the series and depicts the Mono Aircraft Corporation's Monocoupe, doped in the color scheme of the sexually dimorphic red winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).  Only the males feature the distinctive red shoulder and yellow wing bar over black, the female's feathers a nondescript dark brown.

“Pipe dope”, despite the name, is not used of the drug-smoking devices and refers to any of the many lubricants and sealants used to make a pipe thread joint leak-proof and pressure-tight.  In US military slang, a “scope dope” was the officer responsible for radar or a radar operator.  The technical terms “photodope”, “photodoping” & “photodoped” come from materials science and described the process of removing a dopant (a substance added in small amounts to a pure material, such as semiconductor, to alter its original electrical or optical properties).  In electronics, impurities are added to semiconductors as a way of (1) producing a desired result or (2) modifying its properties.  In the tuning of stringed musical instruments, “peg dope” is a substance used to lubricate the pegs of an instrument and to provide the desired friction between pegs and strings.  Use seems not to have extended to other fields but conceivably it could be a helpful (and even lucrative) product for those who enjoy the sexual practice of “pegging” (women using “strap-ons”) an activity Urban Dictionary’s contributors gleefully detail, there being many nuances in use.

Automotive Digest's Dope-Master (1948, left and 1951, right).

Annually updated, Automotive Digest for years published their "Dope Masters", containing the specifications and information (ie "all the dope") required to service or "tune up" most of the automobiles sold in the US.  They were valued by mechanics but also used by many owners, cars then being mostly mechanical devices with some wiring so servicing at home with basis tools was possible in a way unthinkable with modern machines with their high electronic and software content.  In boxing, the phrase “rope-a-dope” described a technique in which the boxer assumes a defensive stance against the ropes, absorbing an opponent's blows, hoping to exploit eventual tiredness or a mistake.  Figuratively, use can be extended to any strategy in which a seemingly losing position is maintained to “lull an opponent into a false sense of security” in the hope of securing eventual victory; in the vernacular, it’s to exhaust them by “stringing them along”.  “Dope slap” is a jocular term which describes “a light slap to the back of the head”, used as a disciplinary measure for some minor infraction (ie imposed for someone being "a bit dopey") while a more severe corporal punishment would be imposed for a more a serious offence.  “Dope glass” (a synonym of “carnival glass”) was a type of glassware dating from the early twentieth century, notable for possessing lustrous colors.  Known variously as “aurora glass”, “iridescent ware”, “Iridill” “poor man's Tiffany”, “rainbow glass” & “taffeta glass”, it was initially declared by the style police to be attractive but, cheap and mass-produced, it soon came to be used to make objects judged “not in the best taste” and, being much associated with the Great Depression years of the 1930s (it was dubbed also “depression glass”), it became unfashionable.