"water pipe for marijuana," 1960s, U.S. slang, said to have been introduced by Vietnam War veterans and said to be from Thai baung, literally "cylindrical wooden tube."
"food or snack," 1959, plural of munchie "snack eaten to satisfy hunger" (1917), from munch (v.); sense of "craving for food after smoking marijuana" is U.S. stoner slang attested by 1971. Munch (n.) "something to eat" is attested from 1816.
"marijuana cigarette," 1920s, perhaps an alteration of Mexican Spanish grifo "marijuana, drug addict" [OED]; or perhaps from reef (v.), on resemblance to a rolled sail. It also meant "pickpocket" in criminal slang (by 1935), and Century Dictionary also has it as "oyster that grows on reefs in the wild."
Reefer also was a nickname for the sailing navy's equivalent to a midshipman (1818) "because they attend in the tops during the operation of reefing" [Century Dictionary], which is the source of the meaning "coat of a nautical cut" (1878) worn by sailors and fishermen "but copied for general use in the fashions of 1888-90" [CD].
in full, Acapulco de Juarez, resort town in western Mexico, from Nahuatl (Aztecan) acapulco "place of the large canes," from aca(tl) "cane (plant)" + -pul "large" + -co "place." Acapulco gold as the name of a local grade of potent marijuana is attested from 1965.
"plant not valued for use or beauty," Old English weod, uueod "grass, herb, weed," from Proto-Germanic *weud- (source also of Old Saxon wiod, East Frisian wiud), of unknown origin. Also applied to trees that grow abundantly. Meaning "tobacco" is from c. 1600; that of "marijuana" is from 1920s. The chemical weed-killer is attested by 1885.
Old English hænep "hemp, cannabis sativa," from Proto-Germanic *hanapiz (source also of Old Saxon hanap, Old Norse hampr, Old High German hanaf, German Hanf), probably a very early Germanic borrowing of the same Scythian word that became Greek kannabis (see cannabis). As the name of the fiber made from the plant, by c. 1300. Slang sense of "marijuana" dates from 1940s; scientific applications for the narcotic derived from hemp date to 1870.
c. 1300, erbe "non-woody plant," especially a leafy vegetable used for human food, from Old French erbe "grass, herb, plant fed to animals" (12c., Modern French herbe), from Latin herba "grass, an herb; herbage, turf, weeds" (source also of Spanish yerba, Portuguese herva, Italian erba). The form of the English word was refashioned after Latin since 15c., but the h- was mute until 19c. Slang meaning "marijuana" is attested from 1960s. The native word is wort.
"stricken by malignant forces (natural or supernatural), cursed, blighted," 1550s, from blast (v.) in its once-common sense of "balefully breathe upon, cause to wither, blight." In the sense of "cursed, damned" it is a euphemism attested from 1680s. The meaning "drunk or stoned" dates from 1972, perhaps from the condition of one so affected, but blast (v.) "smoke marijuana" is attested from 1959 and in early 17c. blast (n.) was the usual word for "a smoke of tobacco."
Central American nation; the name is used of a political jurisdiction by 1530s in Spanish, probably from an unknown Guarani word, traditionally said to mean "place of many fish." Originally the name of the settlement founded 1519 (destroyed 1671 but subsequently rebuilt). Related: Panamanian. Panama hat, made from the leaves of the screw pine, is attested from 1833, a misnomer, because it originally was made in Ecuador, but perhaps so called in American English because it was distributed north from Panama City. Panama red as a variety of Central American marijuana is attested from 1967.
