marijuana

noun

mar·i·jua·na ˌmer-ə-ˈwä-nə

ˌma-rə-,

also -ˈhwä-

variants or less commonly marihuana

: the psychoactive dried resinous flower buds and leaves of the female hemp or cannabis plant (Cannabis sativa or C. indica) that contain high levels of THC and are smoked, vaped, or ingested (as in baked goods) especially for their intoxicating effect : cannabis

Note: Several substances (such as cannabidiol) lacking psychoactive properties are extracted from the flower buds of marijuana and are used medicinally.

compare bhang, hashish see also medical marijuana

: hemp sense 1a, cannabis sense 1

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web Texas' existing medical marijuana program, called the Texas Compassionate Use Program, already allows doctors to prescribe low-THC marijuana products to qualifying patients. —

Michael Murney, Chron, 24 May 2023 The city’s early popularity among international visitors and the cultivation of cannabis in Yunnan province, which spurred the local marijuana market until authorities began cracking down in the 2000s, have contributed to an anything-goes reputation. —

Stephanie Yang, Los Angeles Times, 15 May 2023 Residents would also be allowed to legally grow up to three marijuana plants in their homes and cannabis products could be sold in licensed stores. —

Clarisa Diaz, Quartz, 23 Mar. 2023 Vancouver, a multicultural west coast port city of about 660,000, is among the most picturesque, tolerant cities in Canada, where residents can buy CBD dog treats for their anxious canines at local marijuana shops before biking in Stanley Park. —

Dan Bilefsky, New York Times, 7 May 2023 Cats experience most of the same marijuana toxicity symptoms as dogs. —

Sophia Solano, Anchorage Daily News, 3 May 2023 On the night of Moses’ November 2021 arrest, he and two others were stopped near Barnett Park after a deputy sheriff spotted them smoking marijuana in a car, according to an arrest report. —

Cristóbal Reyes, Orlando Sentinel, 1 Mar. 2023 The bill is aimed at supporting California's marijuana industry, which has been grappling with difficulties posed by high taxation and intense competition from the unregulated market. —

Dario Sabaghi, Forbes, 13 Feb. 2023 Over the years, his collaborators have ranged from fellow 2023 Rock Hall nominee Sheryl Crow to Keith Richards and Snoop Dogg, who — like Nelson — launched a line of marijuana products in 2015. —

George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Apr. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'marijuana.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Mexican Spanish mariguana, marihuana, of uncertain origin

Note: The etymology of Mexican Spanish mariguana, marihuana remains elusive despite much hypothesizing. The first known attestation of the word is in a pharmacopoeia compiled by the newly founded Mexican pharmaceutical academy (Farmacopea mexicana formada y publicada por la Academia Farmacéutica de la Capital de la República, México, 1846); in the text mariguana is a cross-reference to Rosa María, defined as "cáñamo del pais.—Canavis indicus. Hojas. Narcótico" ("country hemp.—Canavis [i.e., Cannabis] indicus. Leaves. Narcotic") (p. 41). The word reappears in the Lecciones de farmacología (Guadalajara, 1853) by Leonardo Oliva (1814-72), chair of pharmacology at the University of Guadalajara. Oliva alludes to the consumption of the plant ("Las hojas fumadas como lo hacen los Hotentotes segun Sparrman i como tambíen lo hacen algunos mejicanos, producen embriaguez é ilusiones sin acarrear la irritacion gastrica, ni otros efectos que ocasionan los alcoholicos …" – "The leaves when smoked, as the Hottentots do according to Sparrman and as certain Mexicans do, produce intoxication and illusions without resulting in the gastric irritation and other side-effects caused by alcoholic drinks …"). Oliva may also have been the first writer to speculate on the origin of the word: "Marihuana…Planta … cuyo nombre acaso está formado de la voz Mari significando Maria i la palabra Huana significando Rosa, ignoro á que idioma pertenece: será planta que como otras muchas pasó á Mejico del Asia antes de la conquista, como parece demostrarlo en cierto modo su nombre americanizado?" ("Marihuana …A plant … whose name is perhaps formed from the word Mari, meaning Maria, and the word Huana, meaning Rosa, from which language I don't know: may it be a plant that like many others passed from Asia to Mexico before the Conquest, which in some way is demonstrated by its Americanized name?") (tomo 1, pp. 200-02). Folk practices relating to marijuana, attributed to the Indians around San Juan del Río, Querétaro, are described by José María Villa, a friend and correspondent of the Mexican author and politician Guillermo Prieto, through quotes in Prieto's Viajes de orden suprema (México, 1857), an account of travels around Mexico (pp. 428-29). (A paraphrase of this passage in "Wild Tribes of Mexico," a chapter of Hubert Howe Bancroft's The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 1 [New York, 1874/75], p. 633, contains probably the first incidence of mariguana in English.) The word was also familiar to the Norwegian traveler Carl Lumholtz, who visited Mexico in the 1890's and noted it in his book Unknown Mexico (vol. 2, New York: 1902): "A form of common hemp called mariguana or rosa maria (Cannabis sativa) sometimes takes the place of hikuli [a Huichol name for the peyote cactus]. The leaves of this injurious narcotic are smoked throughout Mexico, but mostly by criminals and the depraved" (p. 125). Note that the form marijuana is not recorded in Spanish before its use in English in the early twentieth century, so that the hypothesis that the origin of all the forms is a contraction of the compound name María Juana is not supported—in the first 60-70 years of the word's presence in print in Spanish the only attested spellings are mariguana and marihuana. For this observation and other theories about the word, see Isaac Campos, Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico's War on Drugs (University of North Carolina Press, 2012), pp. 67-77.

First Known Use

1874, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Time Traveler

The first known use of marijuana was in 1874

See more words from the same year

Cite this Entry

Style

“Marijuana.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marijuana. Accessed 4 Jun. 2023.

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Kids Definition

marijuana

noun

mar·i·jua·na

variants also marihuana

ˌmar-ə-ˈwän-ə

also -ˈhwän-

: any of various preparations of the dried leaves and flowering tops of the female hemp plant that are used as a drug usually illegally especially by smoking