Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. obsessively in love, infatuated with someone.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 55: She’s got me landed and strung.
1934		Tampa Red ‘Dead Cats On The Line’ 🎵 You’re in such a sniffer gettin’ mighty strung.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 64: I think Jimmy strung out behind her. His nose is wide open.
1974		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water 11: I was in high school and I got strung out behind some old cottontail, you know.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 126: Man, you ain’t nothin’ but a stone, hope-to-die, strung out nigger!
1994		I. Welsh ‘Eurotrash’ in Acid House 24: Staggering onto my late shift, strung out on sex.

2. (also strung out) nervous, unhappy, depressed.

1915		H.W. Farnsworth letter 17 July in Letters (1916) 178: [E]verybody already being much strung up, [the Captain] embraced us one and all. I have not had the same feeling of desolating woe at leaving anybody since the days when I used to say good-bye to Mother .
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 181: ‘You must let me know every week how you are.’ [...] ‘I will that whin I git strung out a bit.’.
1941		N. Mitchison Among You Taking Notes 26 Apr. 139: I feel that everyone is a bit strung-up.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 140: He felt as strung out as a squadron of B-36’s.
1966		H.S. Thompson letter 20 July in Proud Highway (1997) 577: In my strung-out condition I grabbed up the phone.
1977		(con. 1969) M. Herr Dispatches 13: Strungout rednecks who weren’t getting much sleep either.
1984		‘Derek Raymond’ He Died with His Eyes Open 101: Look, I’m worn down, man, I’m strung right out.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 127: [I] wake up so strung-out that I just have to get stoned again.
2000		Guardian G2 1 Feb. 24: This causes our hormones [...] to send out confusing signals that leave us stressed and strung out.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 68: ‘He’d been a bit strung out about his daughter’.

3. obsessed with a topic or activity.

1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 391: ‘Hhhhmmm, where does this particular song end, sir?’ ‘End?’ I looked over at him. ‘Jest a-gittin’ strung out good, mister!’.
1948		C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident 117: I was feeling pretty strung up myself.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 197: The regulars were [...] shrieking and freaking like a strung-out Greek chorus.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 15: Faye was strung out on hotel and dressing rooms and sex metered by the hour.
1999		Guardian G2 13 Sept. 6: Men are strung up like never before about when, with what and how they should go about ‘pleasing’ women.
2009		J. Stahl Pain Killers 96: Tell it, Roscoe. Country strung out on bein’ strung out.
2015		J. Stahl OG Dad 167: Being strung out on heroin is donuts with the pope compared with being strung on baby.

4. (drugs) addicted to narcotics, esp. when suffering the pain of withdrawal.

1954		J. Blake letter 12 Jan. in Joint (1972) 37: Danny was admitted to the Sanitorium as an M addict [...] He came in roaring like a lion, due to being strung out.
1966		J. Mills Panic in Needle Park (1971) 16: In the case of a prostitute, she may be getting so thin and sick-looking—so ‘strung out’—that she has been forced to reduce her price.
1973		New Yorker 3 July 61: Mostly, the users, even the heroin users, weren’t strung-out hard-core junkies.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 173: Many voiced the feeling that life was tough enough without being ‘strung out on smack’.
1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 157: I knew I was ‘cured.’ I was no longer strung.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 326: A strung-out, cold-sweat terrified Manny.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] I’m so strung out I don’t really give a shite whether she walked into The Joy in a snowstorm.
1999		Guardian Guide 29 May–4 June 52: We get him strung out. We get him hung up on horse.
2005		L. Theroux Call of the Weird (2006) 130: Haley had been strung out on ‘crank’.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 5: [He] curses in Spanish at the strung-out guy at the hydrant.
2012		A. Prentice ‘The Break’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] The strung-out ice addict [...] eyes pin-wheeling in his head.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 206: ‘You’re a fucking creep, bro. I know you’re getting those girls strung out on drugs. You’re scum!’.
2019		G. Disher Peace 142: [S]trung-out ice addicts.
2021		T. Swerdlow Straight Dope [ebook] — I just smoked a couple of hits. I’m not going to get strung out again.

5. (drugs) under the influence of any drug (with no suggestion of actual addiction).

1981		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 6: strung out – drunk, high on drugs.
1999		J. Ridley Love Is a Racket 74: I didn’t know what Nellis was strung out on: Meth, blow, crack, smack? maybe all of that.
2002		Fabian & Byrne Out of Time (ms.) 171: We usually made it to daylight before Theo was reduced to talking gibberish and I would feel strung out enough to snap.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 19: A strking sight, even to one who is not strung out and stoned.