gage n.2
1. (US drugs) marijuana; thus gage joint, gage pad, a place to smoke marijuana.
 | ‘Sweet Marijuana Brown’ in Murder at the Vanities [film script] Boy she’s really frantic – the wildest chick in town. / Sweet Marijuana Brown. / She blows her gage – flies in a rage, / Sweet Marijuana Brown. | |
| ‘Knockin’ Myself Out’ 🎵 I started blowin’ my gauge, I was havin’ my fun / I spied the police and I started to run. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 30: My Chippie lays down, like the kong that / Runs in rivers in the gage joints on the Stem. | |
| Really the Blues 72: I passed a stick of gauge for the other boys to smoke, and we started a set. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | 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. | |
| From Here to Eternity (1998) 768: He was seeing everything in the finally-climaxed focus of the crystal clarity that was like slow motion as if he had been smoking gauge. | |
| Book of Negro Folklore 362: Sister Lou got frantic and all in a rage, / Like a tea hound dame on some frantic gage. | |
| Diet of Treacle (2008) 113: Two ounces of gauge. I lose money on the gauge. | |
| Rage in Harlem (1969) : . | |
| Leaves of Grass 1: Mary Ann / Gauge / Mary and Johnny. | |
| ‘Signifyin’ Monkey’ 🎵 So the lion jumped up in a helluva rage! / Like a young cocksucker full of gage. | |
| (con. 1930s) Addicts Who Survived 240: In those days it was called ‘gage,’ ‘weed,’ or ‘tea’. | |
| Florida Roadkill 236: Coleman: ‘Pot, grass, weed, dope, [...] gage . . .’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | (con. 1945–6) Devil’s Jump (2008) 51: ‘What is it?’ ‘Gage [...] Texas Tea. Mexican Spinach. Maitland madness. Loco weed. Indian Hemp. Gangster. Marijuanna.’. |
2. (US black) used generically for marijuana but also narcotics.
| ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 30 Nov. 10/5: They [i.e. Harlem women] smoke their ’tea’...they blow their top and sniff their ‘gauge’. |
3. (US drugs) the effect of marjuana, a ‘high’.
| ‘The Something in a Colored Man’ in Coll. Stories 406: He felt big, important, strictly fine, like a man on a tree-top gage. |
In compounds
(drugs) a marijuana cigarette.
| in ‘Tea for a Viper’ New Yorker 12 Mar. | |
| ‘Jargon of Marihuana Addicts’ in AS XV:3 Oct. 336/2: The cigarettes are usually called reefers, but other names are: bennys, gage-butts. | |
| Traffic In Narcotics. | |
| , | | DAS. |
a place for buying and/or smoking marjuana.
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 124: I’m cuttin’ out from them old gage pads, boy, I don’t know ’bout you. |
In phrases
(orig. US black) to smoke marijuana.
| ‘Knocking Myself Out’ 🎵 I started blowing my gage, and I was havin’ my fun / I spied the police and I started to run. | |
| Imabelle 29: Three teenage boys and a young girl inside were all blowing gage. | |
| Big Gold Dream 59: Blowing gage and talking underneath their clothes like as if they were hustlers. | |
| Rage in Harlem (1969) 30: Three teenage boys have a fifteen-year-old girl inside, all blowing gage. | |
| in Drugs and the Public 206: I could not see how they were more justified in drinking than I was in blowing the gage. I was a grasshopper. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 184: I used to blow some gauge. [Ibid.] 230: blow gauge Smoke marijuana. | |
| Blue House Globe and Mail 🌐 The bass player said he likes to sit on the couch and __________ (I can’t say it, but synonyms include ‘blow gage from a white stick’ and ‘do cheeb from a large rolled concoction’). |
(US black) to smoke marijuana.
| N.Y. Times Mag. 16 Dec. 81: They drink whisky and ‘gage up’ (smoke pot). |
to excite or stimulate oneself, esp. from smoking marijuana or drinking alcohol.
| ‘Prison Parlance’ in AS IX:1 26: get one’s gage up. To become intoxicated. | |
| et al. DAUL 79/2: Get one’s gage up. To stimulate oneself by smoking marijuana, or, less frequently, by drinking hard liquor. | |
| Night People 21: Maybe you would have a little taste upstairs, but when you got your gauge up and your stomach full, you’d go back and blow some more. | |
| ONDCP Street Terms 10: Get a gage up — To smoke marijuana. |