Vocabulary in Demon Copperhead

A U.S. government program (Women, Infants, and Children) that provides food assistance and nutrition support to low-income pregnant women and young children.

Department of Social Services, the state agency responsible for child welfare, foster care placement, and family assistance programs.

A prescription drug used to treat opioid addiction by reducing withdrawal symptoms and cravings; here associated with the mother's substance dependency.

A system in which a child is temporarily placed by the state to live with an approved adult or family when their biological parents cannot care for them.

A state-supervised residential facility housing multiple children removed from their families, typically offering minimal individual attention or comfort.

A social services employee assigned to manage a child's welfare case, make placement decisions, and monitor living conditions in the foster system.

A foster care arrangement in which a child is placed with a relative or close family friend rather than an unrelated foster family.

A brand-name prescription opioid painkiller containing oxycodone, highly addictive and central to the opioid epidemic depicted in this novel.

A doctor's office or clinic that prescribes opioid painkillers freely and irresponsibly, often for profit, fueling addiction in the surrounding community.

Slang for a medical prescription, especially one for opioid painkillers obtained from a doctor and then used or sold on the street.

A prescription medication combining buprenorphine and naloxone, used to treat opioid addiction by easing withdrawal and blocking the high from other opioids.

Short for detoxification: a medically supervised process of clearing addictive drugs from the body, often the first step in addiction treatment.

Narcotics Anonymous, a twelve-step peer support program for people recovering from drug addiction, modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous.

Appalachian dialect word for a creek or small stream; used throughout as a marker of regional speech and working-class rural identity.

Appalachian term for a small, narrow valley between hills, typically home to a cluster of houses; a distinct geographical and social community unit.

Appalachian dialect for a young child or youngster; used in dialogue to reflect the regional speech patterns of rural southwest Virginia.

In Appalachian dialect, this means worthless, lazy, or no good — a moral judgment about a person's character, not an expression of regret.

Appalachian and Southern dialect for 'suppose,' 'think,' or 'believe'; used throughout as a marker of the narrator's regional voice.

In this context, the act of creating comic-strip or cartoon-style artwork; Demon's natural artistic talent that becomes a means of expression and eventual survival.

The pharmaceutical company that manufactured and aggressively marketed OxyContin, widely blamed for igniting the opioid epidemic in Appalachian communities.

Slang in the drug trade context meaning to transport or deliver drugs for a dealer, used here to describe how young people are recruited as couriers.

Slang for being severely addicted to drugs and visibly deteriorated in health and function as a result of prolonged heavy use.

Reaching the lowest and most desperate point of addiction, where a person has lost nearly everything and can sink no further before seeking help.

Legally freed from the foster care system, typically at age eighteen, meaning the state no longer has custody and the young person must fend for themselves.