Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a psychiatric institution.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 80/2: Giggle academy. A hospital for insane or mentally defective delinquents.
1957		‘The Gumps’ in Nevada State Jrnl (Reno, NE) 22 Feb. 15: [cartoon strip] I promise to keep your lunacy quiet but don’t tell another soul or you’ll land in the giggle academy.
1980		Daily Beacon (Univ. Tenn.) 10 Oct. 2: He was previously committed to the state giggling academy [HDAS].
2003		B. Klein ‘Rev. of Beach Boys: Greatest Car Songs’ at PreAmp.com 🌐 The real ones (Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine, Mike Love), before they quit, died, disappeared, or got fitted for the tied-in-back school uniform of the Giggle Academy.

(Aus./US) a psychiatric institution.

1972		Pittsburgh Post-Gaz. 23 Oct. 1/1: They may come bubbling up with a plan fit only for the giggle bin.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 51: A psychiatric hospital is a ‘shrink klink’, ‘giggle bin’, ‘nut factory’ or ‘peanut factory’.
2006		posting at www.racksandspurs.proboards38.com 🌐 That woman is so goofy [she] would put you in the giggle bin before you got to second base!!

(US drugs) cocaine.

1993		New Yorker 17 May 106: The choking dread is mixed with giggle dust [HDAS].
1998		T. Engler ‘Planet of Twilight’ on Wonderland Libraries 🌐 She would have known if there had been trouble with booze or spice or giggle-dust.
2003		Palm Beach Post (FL) 8 June 845/1: The rollicking love life of a pixie hooked on giggle dust.

(Aus./N.Z./US) a psychiatric institution.

1928		Hamilton Eve. Jrnl (OH) 23 Apr. 10/1: Many of the nitwits [...] should be cutting out paper dolls in some giggle factory.
1962		Indianapolis Star (IN) 14 Oct. 117/6: Anyone [...] knows them as the couple next door — if you live next door to a giggle factory or a psychiatric ward.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 26: This bloke’s a flamin’ ratbag! He ought to be doing time in a giggle factory!!
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

1. (US) nitrous oxide (cf. giggling gas under giggling adj.).

1934		Pittsburgh Press 21 Jan. 24/1: The quartet sniffs giggle gas.
1960		Asbury Park Press (NJ) 26 June 31/4: Many of us have experinced the effects of nitrous oxide at the family dentists, where it may have been called [...] giggle gas.
1971		Odessa American (TX) 25 Feb. 5-D: Stamps needed under the new set-up for certain tems are: [...] Mount Shasta Grass, One Orange Book — Giggle Gas, One Maroon Book.
2004		J. Breitenstein Ultimate Hot Rod Dict. 89: giggle gas (also giggle juice) n. Nitrous oxide.

2. (Aus.) beer.

1937

Townsville Dly Bulletin (Qld) 1 Oct. 11/5: [A]lthough they could swallow the giggle juice, I really consider their beer partles small compared to a couple I am about to relate.

3. (US) ether.

1938

News-Herald (Franklin, PA) 2 Aug. 4/3: Perhaps we shouldn’t say ‘From out of the ether,’ ’cause in emerging from the effects of this so-called [...] giggle gas we utter such strange and unreckonable things.

(Aus./ N.Z./US) a psychiatric institution.

1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 26: giggle-house — Lunatic asylum.
1926		L. Esson Bride of Gospel Place 103: Renie:It’s been a great night, Lil. Lily: I hope we don’t finish up in the giggle-house.
1930		L. Lower Here’s Luck 149: ‘You think it is the door to the palace of romance, when it is only the fire-escape exit leading out to a back lane. A fork in the road leading to the divorce court or the giggle-house’.
1941		Williamstown Chron. (Vic.) 15 Mar. 2/3: Fair dinkum, fellas, you’d have got me into the giggley house.
1946		L. Esson Southern Cross: And Other Plays 93: I hope we don’t finish up in the giggle-house.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 24: What a story to make the old hens in the giggle-house laugh.
1965		R.H. Conquest Horses in Kitchen 32: Old Lolly Legs postulated [...] that mankind was slowly but surely going mad, and that vote-seeking politicians of the future would have to promise ‘bigger and better giggle-houses’.
1970		Dly Tar Heel Chapel Hill, NC) 9 Dec. 6/2: The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house.
1980		Democrat & Chron. (Rochester, NY) 22 June 15/5: A point of view that belongs strictly in the Giggle House.
1984		Age (Melbourne) 1 Sept. 157/5: I didn’t know what to do [...] I was nearly in the giggle house.
1995		Age (Melbourne) 12 July 11/1: If he had not put behind him what happened [...] he would have ‘ended up in the giggle house’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.
2004		S. Wagg British Football and Social Exclusion 99: With the weary hope that the players concerned are not [...] wriggling in strait-jackets in the local giggle house.

1. (Aus./US) alcohol; thus giggle juice dispenser, a bootlegger.

1928		Lebanon Dly News (PA) 27 Nov. 6/7: The alleged giggle juice dispenser [...] gave vent to a wild burst of East Lebanon adjectives.
1929		Harrisburg Tel. (PA) 4 Apr. 17/2: Fifty thousand gallons of contraband ‘giggle juice’ [...] were destroyed by authorities.
1931		Lebanon Semi-Wkly News (PA) 9 Mar. 3/3: While speakeasy proprietors and giggle juice dispensers were guarding against a suspected raid [etc].
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. 20: giggle juice – champagne.
1940		R.L. Bellem ‘Death’s Passport’ in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 112/1: Ghosts don’t imbibe giggle-juice.
1945		R.L. Bellem ‘Coffin for a Coward’ in Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 The waiter [...] came back presently with more giggle juice. Bonham tossed it down his hatch.
1966		Baker Aus. Lang. (2nd edn).
1976		R. Morrieson Pallet on the Floor 29: ‘Gigglejuice’ Saunders [...] didn’t care or even know what he was drinking, providing it was of an alcoholic nature.
1984		R. Whittingham What a Game They Played (2002) 94: He was a little eccentric, a little weird, particularly if he got a little giggle juice in him.
2017		Sydney Morn. Herald 10 July 🌐 Uncle Jack, as he’s widely known, is out front having a ciggie with his ‘giggle juice’ (a pot of stout).

2. (US) gasoline.

1975

L. Dills CB Slanguage.

3. see giggle gas

(US) strong alcohol.

1928		Oakland Tribune (CA) 20 Dec. 5/2: A pack horse had trotted up a gallon of giggle soup [...] and the elbow-benders were putting ona free-for-all.
1930		Townsville daily Bull. 1 Nov. 8/3: Give Steve a couple of drinks of giggle soup and he’s good for a yarn.
1931		Ade Old-Time Saloon 77: Any one who owned up to paying five a bottle for ‘giggle soup’.
1933		J. Conroy Disinherited 215: The giggle soup makes me feel for a while as though I had accomplished all I used to plan for myself.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1982		W.R. Dunn Fighter Pilot (1996) 2: Their war stories, after they got a little giggle-soup under their belts, left my brother and me spellbound.

see separate entries.

(Aus.) an army uniform.

1947

Maryborough Chron. (Qld) 26 Mar. 4/4: Cursing, in a giggle-suit / To ease his rookie nervousness.

1. champagne.

1910		Allentown Leader (PA) 30 Dec. 6/3: [headline] Champagne Banquet. Giggle Water as Fifth Degree Mysteries Are Revealed.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1966		S. Chamberlain Bouquet de France 63: Can Champagne be dismissed as mere giggle-water after this tribute?

2. alcohol, esp. whisky or gin; thus giggle-water parlor, a bar or nightclub.

1911		Des Moines Register (IA) 2 July 11/1: It’s awfully hot to be wrestling with anything but lemonade and giggle water.
1928		M. West Pleasure Man (1997) III i: Say, what kind of party is dis? Where’s the giggle water?
1929		W. Winchell On Broadway 5 Aug. [synd. col.] It happened in one of the larger giggle-water parlors.
1936		Archie Seale Man About Harlem 29 Aug. [synd. col.] James DeKine [...] and Pauline Brown [...] are testing the Harlem gigglewater.
1937		Marijuana: Weed with Roots in Hell [film script] We tried Tony’s giggle water, let’s try his giggle weed.
1941		M. Prenner ‘Drunk in Sl.’ in AS XVI:1 Jan. 70/2: liquor [...] giggle water.
1942		W. Winchell ‘On Broadway’ 16 Apr. [synd. col.] He’s a man-about-town — over-fond of giggle water.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1958		Mad mag. Dec. 28: in the bar called Gitchy Goomy / Where they serve the giggle water.
1962		W.R. Burnett Widow Barony 120: Their little Tomásian friend, the courier, joined them, asking if they had any more ‘giggle-water’. Chuck had called the bourbon that one night and the Tomásian had been delighted with the hoary epithet.
1977		Casey ‘Kid’ Motsisi ‘Confessions of an Illicit Boozer’ Casey and Co. (1978) 64: They needed our commission dough and we needed them to get us the giggle waters.
2004		J.C. Baldwin Love, Luck and Conflict 70: She began inviting him to her apartment for a spot of ‘giggle water’ as she called it.

1. (US) Jimson weed.

1933

Manitowoc Herald (WI) 3 Nov. 1/3: Strapped in straitjackets when they became violent, two unployed Kenosha men [are] seriously ill after eating seeds from Jimson weed, sometimes known as ‘giggle weed’.

2. (drugs) cannabis.

1935		St Louis Star-Times 4 Feb. n.p.: If you are a ‘right guy’ a ‘giggle smoke’ is available in places of lenient morals and may be purchased from a ‘bystander’ in many of the cheaper downtown resorts.
1937		Marijuana: Weed with Roots in Hell [film script] We tried Tony’s giggle water, let’s try his giggle weed.
1952		Lannoy & Masterson ‘Teen-age Hophead Jargon’ AS XXVII:1 26: GIGGLE WEED, n. Marijuana.
1954		R. Fabian London After Dark 25: As soon as you cough, every eye is upon you suspiciously. [...] It means your throat is new to the dry tickle of marijuana cigarettes – reefers, giggle-smoke, love-weed, bhang, ganji, Indian hay.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore 68: Giggle smokes – Marihuana cigarettes.
1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 83: Kwela music or rock-’n-roll records are played, to liven up the party, and when brandy is taken and ‘giggleweed’ smoked, the colour line in sex is speedily forgotten.
1970		Manchester Guardian Weekly 20 June 6: The young solider was saying that here in Vietnam cannabis, pot, the weed, giggle-smoke, grass, Mary Jane, call it what you will, is readily available.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972) 89: Giggle weed [...] Marijuana.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 10: Giggle smoke — Marijuana; Giggle weed — Marijuana.
2003		K. Cage Gayle 72/1: giggelgrassies n. (dim.) (Afr.) dagga, marijuana.
2005		posting at www.multiverse.org 31 July 🌐 You mean the one with the naked Amazonian elf babe ninjas and the scene where Gandalf and Frodo get stoned on giggleweed!