A police officer who works undercover in drug enforcement, or slang for someone who informs authorities about others' illegal activities.
Short for 'narcotic' officer, created as police slang in the mid-20th century, from 'narcotic' (from Greek 'narkotikos' meaning 'numbing').
The term 'narc' became culturally important because of the 1960s drug culture—it's part of the language teenagers developed to talk about authority figures and drug enforcement in a way that coded information to avoid adult understanding!
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