weed n.1
1. in context of smoking.
(a) tobacco.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Humours Ordinarie C: This same poyson-steeped India weede, In head, hart, lungs, doth soot and cobwebs breede. | |
| Elynour Rummynge (rev. edn) in Harleian Misc. I (1744–46) 477: My countrymens cases With fiery-smoak faces, Sucking and drinking, A filthie weede stinking. | |
| The Wandering Jew 19: That sacred Indian-weed, is restorative to me, Tobacco is my heaven on earth. | |
| Hudibras Redivivus I:2 22: I scarce had fill’d a Pipe of Sot-weed, / And by the Candle made it Hot-weed. | |
| Vulgus Britannicus III 41: And strew’d about the Wicked Weed, / Like Gard’ners when they sow their Seed. | |
| Humours of the Army II i: Faugh upon they nasty Weed, Sir. | |
| Mother Gin 13: No crutch’d up Quadroped in greatest need, Tasted one dram, nor touch’d Virginian weed. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘Flash Lang.’ in Confessions of Thomas Mount 19: Tobacco, weed. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Vocab. of the Flash Lang. | |
| Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 13: [P]lenty of ‘veed’ to puff away the time. | |
| Real Life in London II 376: Each of them professing an intention to intersect the city with canals of sky blue, to reduce the price of heavy wet, and to cultivate plantations of weed. | |
| Bk of Sports 158: That veed of all veeds, boys, the backee. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Handy Andy 58: Larry [...] crammed some of the weed into the bowl of his pipe with his little finger. | |
| Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 89: Some smoking, others chewing ‘the weed’. | |
| Paul Pry 18 Dec. n.p.: Mr. L—e, tobacconist, of Blackfriars-road, not to profess to sell his weed at 2 1/2d. per ounce, unless he can give weight. | |
| Pippins and Pies 35: The young man [...] had been invited to supper by the cook, and was indulging in a pipe of the fragrant weed after refreshment. | |
| Tom Brown at Oxford (1880) 42: The first whiff made him cough, as he wasn’t used to the fragrant weed in this shape. | |
| Hamilton Spectator (Vic.) 7 Jan. 1/7: His food is his ‘grub;’ his drink, his ‘lush;’ his cigar, his ‘weed’. | |
| Five Years’ Penal Servitude 122: Men will run any risk and do anything to get ever so little of the much-coveted ‘weed.’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 10 July 4/4: Woman in this hand and the weed in that, hang out thy balance, Jupiter and weigh them both; and if thou give the preference to woman all I can then say is—the next time Juno ruffles thee, O Jupiter try the weed! | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 6 Nov. 4/2: [pic. caption] A Scene from a [...] Sixth Avenue Smoking Car — Giddy Girls who Believe in Taking a ‘Whiff of the Weed’ in Public. | |
| Childe Chappie’s Pilgrimage 49: And Chappie claps gloved hands, and puffs the odorous weed. | |
| ‘Our Pipes’ in Roderick (1972) 145: I smoked some sort of weed [...] but it wasn’t tobacco. | |
| Boy’s Own Paper 29 June 616: The only article subject to duty was the tobacco [...] having purchased the weed legitimately in a Silmouth shop, I was at my wits’ end to know what the captain was driving at. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 6 Mar. 1/4: The vendor of the weed which maketh the heart grow glad [...] got ready the parcel. | |
| Hopkinsville Kentuckian (KY) 1 Feb. 2/3: It is estimated that there are 13,000,000 devotees of the weed [...] one person in each six of our population is a puffer of smoke. | |
| Zone Policeman 88 159: Then if he chances to be addicted to the weed there is the cigarette-case and matches. | |
| N.Y. Herald 6 Mar. 83/5: The American woman [...] has taken to smoking cigarettes like her European sister, who long ago became [...] an addict of the weed. | |
| New York Day by Day 28 Aug. [synd. col.] There are fewer chewers of the weed in New York than in perhaps any other city. | |
| We Who Are About to Die 234: To knock over a con for his weed and sugar is a thrilling way to relieve the monotony of prison life. | |
| Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1986) 17: Five mills for the crackers who grew the weed and five for the dupes who rolled it. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Till Human Voices Wake Us 152: He’d ask you how you were off for weed and bludge a smoke. | |
| (con. 1940s) Sowers of the Wind 26: I got some weed but no smokes. | |
| Shiralee 29: ‘Weed?’ ‘I’ll get some at Bellata.’. | |
| (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 347: You wouldn’t be bashing the weed like you are. | |
| No Sunlight Singing (1966) 196: Trouble with this weed in the damp it gets so damn’ wet you can’t get it to draw. | |
| Burn 41: Gunner [...] drags his tin of weed from his trouser pocket. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Go-Boy! 16: Shitty weed is stunting my growth. | |
| Big Huey 255: weed (n) Prison tobacco. | |
| Doing Time 199: weed: tobacco. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Weed. Marijuana or tobacco. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 201/2: weed n. prison tobacco. | |
| Intractable [ebook] [W]eed had been the main currency in New South Wales prisons since Bligh’s Rum Rebellion put an end to the rum currency. |
(b) a cigar.
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | Peregrine Pultuney I 163: Cigar smoking was the order of the day [...] Pultuney was [...] blowing a cloud [...] Beside him sat Julian Jenks, employed in like manner with a ‘weed’. | |
| ‘A Week in Oxford’ in Bell’s Life in Sydney 1 Nov. 4/5: Literary pursuits on the part of myself and another Cantab [...] and ‘the glorious weed,’ filled up the space. | |
| Natural History of the Gent 52: He has been ‘dining with some fellows he knows;’ or ‘having a weed with a man’. | |
| Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Dec. 141/1: [I]f he does not leave off [...] smoking those abominable ‘weeds’ (cabbages I call them) I shall really have to give him up. | |
| Ask Mamma 309: Cuddy [...] producing a cigar-case, tendered Billy a weed. | |
| N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 12 Oct. 5/3: A very little weed, / And big whiskers under that. | |
| Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act I: Here, have a weed. [Offers cigar]. | |
| Lays of Ind (1905) 14: ‘The only thing I want is some Vesuvians for my weeds.’ / A box was thrown, the stranger lit his half-consumed cigar. | |
| ‘’Arry on His ’Oliday’ in Punch 13 Oct. 161/1: The weeds as I’ve blown is a caution; — I’m nuts on a tuppenny smoke. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Apr. 3/3: Even if his jokes are sometimes stale, his ‘weeds’ are good. | |
| Bristol Magpie 14 Dec. 11/1: [T]he smoke of his ‘weed’ getting into his throat, gave him a very lively fit. | |
| Mr Barnes of N.Y. 244: Take a chair and a weed, Musso [...] that cigar is a good one. | |
| Harvard Stories 198: Jack Randolph just made the horrid smell with one of Steve’s weeds. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 93: Weed, [...] a cigar. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 17 July 1/1: A prominent Wesleyan parson [...] is giving up the calamitous vice of smoking [...] he has not, however, abandoned the weed’s cuddlesome, correlative vice. | |
| Bar-20 xvi: ‘Yas, yas; them cigars — I know all about them cigars’ [...] replied the foreman, biting off the end of his weed. | |
| Spats’ Fact’ry (1922) 67: Nicholas Don [...] drew from his left breast a fat cigar with a gorgeous bellyband, and lit the luxurious weed. | |
| London Town 295: The weeds were five-shilling Corona-Coronas. | |
| Vile Bodies 154: Have a weed? A large cigar-case appeared. | |
| ‘Let Me at the Enemy’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 42: He pulled a weed an’ bit off the root. |
(c) (also paper weed) a cigarette.
 | ‘I Think It Looks Very Much Like It’ in Comic Songs 24: From my case last night she took a weed, / And she knew the right way to light it. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Jan. 8/3: A rank weed our hero’s puffing, / While he tells how he’s been ‘bluffing’ / Some blind hawker of his fruit. | |
| ‘The Cigarette’ Dagonet Ditties 94: The doctors tell a dreadful tale. / A wretched fellow writes to say / They’d better throw such weeds away. | |
| Scarlet City 57: ‘Did you offer me a cigarette?’ [...] and he had helped himself from a green wine-glass full of ‘paper weeds’. | |
| ‘The Bulletin Hotel’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 7: But there’s many a drink unpaid for, many sticks of ‘borrowed’ weed. | |
| ‘Longevity Jujubes’ Sporting Times 23 July 1/3: A lady, well primed for a ‘tiff,’ / Darted in at full speed, seized the cove with the ‘weed,’ / And said, ‘Come to the home you have wrecked!’. | |
| Phila. Inquirer (PA) 31 May 85/1: Miss Henry [...] makes out a clear case for the ‘weed’ and for alcohol. | |
| Sheepmates 273: ‘Smells a good weed,’ he said. ‘Give me that, and you roll another.’. | |
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 26: It glowed like a weed, so fine ’n’ red in the dark. | |
| Go, Man, Go! 35: She stretched and lit a cigarette. ‘Want a weed?’ She tossed the pack to Gil. | |
| Big Rumble 12: ‘Got a weed?’ ‘No. Don’t smoke.’. | |
| (con. late 1940s) Tattoo (1977) 436: Had a weed with Jeanne Harris this morning. | |
| (con. 1930s–50s) Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 96: Hey Mack, any fags, any weeds, any butts, any stabbers, any coffin nails? | |
| Indep. on Sun. Real Life 22 Aug. 4: Nagging friends and family can’t get you to give up the weed? | |
| Shame the Devil 48: I’ll be out back, catching a weed. | |
| ‘Fish Sticksin Knockemstiff 106: ‘Give me a weed’. |
(d) (drugs, also green weed, weeds) marijuana.
| Butte Dly Post (MT) 2 Nov. 7/7: Loco weed by the bucketful was seized yesterday by the police [...] The officers found a washtub [...] filled with marijuana weed. | |
| Wkly Jrnl-Miner (Prescott, AZ) 16 Apr. 2/4: The weed is used, quite extensively, by Mexicans [...] It is stated a Mexican uprising [...] was greatly influenced by those addicted to this weed. | |
| Tropic Death (1972) 108: Creole girls led, thwarted, wooed and burned by obeah-working, weed-smoking St. Lucian men. | |
| [ | | Coshocton (OH) Trib. 3 May n.p.: By rep. V.E. Cramer, Toledo, prohibiting sale in Ohio of Mexican weed known as marijuana and adding it to list of banned drugs]. |
| Rough Stuff 204: There is no sensation in the world like smoking weed can give you. | |
| Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 29 Oct. 11/1: Harlem Dictionary [...] Bring Down. Something depressing. These guys who go around puffing weeds, thinking that’s their qualification as a musician, bring us down. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 28: They also spoke of it as ‘the weed’, or ‘the herb’, or ‘the queer stuff’ (although this latter appellation is more usually applied to methylated spirits). | |
| Willemsdorp (1981) I 507: Maybe Pieta was only a dog of a Bechuana and almost as low as a Pondo. [...] But Pieta could speak with much appreciation and understanding of the powers of the green weed. | |
| Duke 4: Weed [...] makes you feel gay. | |
| Fads & Fancies 1 3: For those who don’t know, marijuana (or tea or weed or gauge — there is a whole new language here) is a drug [...] smoked in cigarettes known as reefers or mezzes or muggles. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Hills were Joyful Together (1966) 214: He was smoking a spliff. He could smell the weed. | |
| Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 31: ‘Pot — Shit — Tea — Gunja — Tampi — Reefers — Weed — or if you want me to be really square — Indian Hemp!’. | |
| Crime in S. Afr. 105: When he says he ‘rooks the weed’ he means that he smokes dagga. | |
| (con. 1930s) Lawd Today 195: Want some weeds? | |
| Third Ear n.p.: weeds n. marijuana. | |
| ‘Street Song’ in Oxford Bk Contemp. Verse (1980) 215: You cannot guess the weed I hold, / Clara Green, Acapulco Gold, / Panama Red, you name it man. | |
| ‘Legalise It’ 🎵 Some call it tamjee, some call it the weed. | |
| Serial 95: I also brought along some incredible weed. | |
| Harder They Come 151: He passed the weed to Ivan, who tried to handle it nonchalantly. | |
| Tourist Season (1987) 149: I feel so secure I’m gonna smoke some weed. | |
| ‘Doggy Dogg World’ 🎵 I smoke weed for the fuck of it. | |
| Deathdeal [ebook] ‘They asked, did I do coke? Did I smoke the dreaded weed?’. | |
| Guardian G2 4 Aug. 17: A May conviction for the cultivation of marijuana hinged on what’s known in legal circles as the ‘Dot Cotton defence’: namely that the weed was intended for medicinal use only. | |
| Crumple Zone 13: Rousted one rainy dawn in Moss Side with a roomful of bootlegs, a couple of bags of weed and a heavy duty water pistol to explain. | |
| (con. 1990s) in One of the Guys 47: ‘I just hanging around smoking weed and just kicking it’. | |
| Turning Angel 109: ‘She’s no stranger to drugs.’ ‘Weed? or worse?’. | |
| Tharunka (Sydney) 9 Mar 19/1: Don’t go there if you’re taking acid or smoking weed . | |
| Hilliker Curse 30: I smoked weed and scored uppers. | |
| Thrill City [ebook] ‘Smoke, mate?’ [...] ‘Not unless it’s weed. Need to kip for a few hours’. | |
| Locked Ward (2013) 318: A devotee of the Fragrant Weed. | |
| Guardian 2 May 1/1: Synthetic cannabis is having a ‘devastating impact’ in British prisons [...] Unlike traditional resin and weed, [it] is manufactured in labs and is usually odourless. | |
| Scrublands [ebook] ‘You prefer some weed? I got piles of it out back. Or tobacco. Got a bit of that as well. Cunt of a thing to grow—’. | |
| Cherry 91: I assumed I’d be pisstested about as soon as I got to Fort Hood, so I was trying to get a lot of weed smoking in early on. | |
| ‘Broken’ in Broken 22: The apartment belongs to a major weed-slinger. | |
| Hitmen 236: [A man under surveillance] ‘Talks of Daniel and Christopher and joints of weed’. |
(e) a marijuana cigarette.
| ‘The Man From Harlem’ 🎵 And they said, ‘I’m kinda low.’ / And he said, ‘I’ve got just what you need: / Come on, sisters, light up on these weeds and get high and forget about everything.’. | |
| ‘Marihuana and a Pistol’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 372: ‘Red’ Caldwell bought two ‘weeds’ and went to the room where he lived [...] and smoked them. | |
| Mad mag. Apr.–May 17: Hey kids! wanna buy some weeds, cheap? | |
| in Hellhole 89: Jerry gave me a couple of weeds to smoke. | |
| ‘Youths of Hope’ in Voices of the Living Dead (1983) 28: We smoke weeds of wrath, / twist rhythms of riot. | |
| Urban Grimshaw 41: Just having a weed. Nowt else to do. |
2. as a plant.
(a) (Aus.) the grass.
| Sport (Adelaide) 24 Apr. 3/6: When on the weed the other night /When the lovely moon was shining bright / Jumbo A was heard to pass the remark / Don’t tickle me darling, or I’ll lark. |
(b) (US) a green vegetable.
| ‘Popeye’ Thimble Theatre Ser. 2 n.p.: If you youngstirs wants to be healthy like me ya got to eat yer weeds like yer maw sez – yers trulie Popeye. |
In compounds
see separate entries.
(US) a marijuana user.
| Jr. ‘Sticktown Nocturne’ in Baltimore Sun (MD) 12 Aug. A-3/4: The weedhound, Mooney explained, is ‘all boomed off’ about Alice, who will not give him a tumble. | |
| Man with the Golden Arm 314: They picked up weed hounds. | |
| Narcotics Lingo and Lore. |
(US drugs) a family home from which marijuana is sold.
| Central Sl. | |
| Blood Posse 217: They were notorious for [...] robbing weed houses. |
(UK drugs) a marijuana dealer.
| What They Was 213: The weedman’s eyes open wide. |
(drugs) marijuana tea.
| , | | DAS. |
| Drug Abuse. | |
| ONDCP Street Terms 22: Weed tea — Marijuana. |
In phrases
(US) to smoke marijuana.
| Jr. ‘Sticktown Nocturne’ in Baltimore Sun (MD) 12 Aug. A-3/4: The weedhound, Mooney explained, is ‘all boomed off’ about Alice, who will not give him a tumble [...] so he ‘rides the weed’ harder than ever. |
(drugs) second-rate, adulterated marijuana.
| Drugs from A to Z (1970). | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 170: Some dude gonna burn you wid dat sugar weed. It moist and damp and green. Cut wif sugar. | |
| ONDCP Street Terms 20: Sugar weed — Marijuana. |