gateway drug

English

Noun

gateway drug (plural gateway drugs)

1. An addictive substance that is seen as relatively harmless by itself, but is believed to encourage the user to experiment with more harmful substances.
2. (by extension, figurative) Any thing or area of interest that tends to lead to deeper involvement.
   • 2014, Dave Fancher, Book of F#: Breaking Free with Managed Functional Programming, page XX:

     It has been said that LINQ is a gateway drug for functional programming

   • 2019, Emily Padraic, Under My Skin, page 3:

     Darn you, Downton Abbey, for being the gateway drug for all things BBC.

Translations

substance that is believed to encourage the user to experiment with more harmful substances

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: porttihuume (fi)
• German: Einstiegsdroge (de) f
• Hungarian: kapudrog
• Portuguese: droga de entrada f
• Russian: шлюз (ru) m (šljuz), ста́ртовый нарко́тик m (stártovyj narkótik), перехо́дный нарко́тик m (perexódnyj narkótik), ключево́й нарко́тик m (ključevój narkótik) (no idiomatic translation exists)

Further reading

• gateway drug effect on Wikipedia.Wikipedia