monging

monging n. being under the influence of depressants or other drugs (especially for recreational use); idling, relaxing, or vegetating (especially due to drugs or alcohol or their after-effects); vegging out, chilling out, or chillaxing. Also, monged out, adj., feeling dulled, sluggish, or drugged. Etymological Note: From the slightly older to mong or to mong out, to take sense-dulling drugs, especially tranquilizers, opiates, or other depressants; to relax or chill out (under the influence of drugs or alcohol). (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

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4 comments
  • My mother (born 1898, grew up in Portsmouth, UK, settled in Wiltshire, UK, after marriage) used to talk of ‘monging around’in a shop or at a sale, in the sense of ‘browsing’. I must have used the expression myself at school in Wiltshire, and since no-one ever queried it, I suspect it was current there, if not also in Portsmouth (50 miles south). Could the drugs-related sense of the word have developed from this older sense? After all, when you’re browsing, you can look pre-occupied and even drowsy or sluggish.

  • Hannah, words can have more than one meaning and Urban Dictionary is not a reliable source, especially in this case where the definitions given there are completely without substantiation.

  • I have always heard and believed “Monging” meant selling or pushing – as the active verb for the fish-monger, rumor-monger, or whore-monger.  I have also heard of the brit-speak “monging around” which I took to be the definition given by DJ Jones.  Perhaps this active and passive (as such) terms for “pushing” and “buying” or using has some relevance to it becoming a drug term?

Further reading

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