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. Subjects: English, United Kingdom, Drugs, Slang

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).

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Citations: 1992 [Alexei Moiseyev] Usenet: soc.culture.soviet (Dec. 3) “AmeRussian surzhik, part3”: “To chill out,” “to have a blast”; if you are talking of drug induced intoxication, it is “to get stoned,” “to get monged” and “to get high,” of course. 1993 [Robin J. Green] Usenet: alt.rave (Apr. 2) “Re: Phantom of the Opera?”: Snowball…MDMA, lots of Smack (leaves you monged out). 1993 Mandi James UK Mixmag (Oct.) “Super Grass (Part 2 of 3)” @ Usenet: alt.drugs (Sept. 30, 1993) Whizz “Skunk power (Part 2 of 3)”: At thirteen pound a tenth I don’t see it as a bag of weed, I see it as a #13 E that’s gonna last me ten hours when I hammer the whole bag. You can’t tan black or hash like that ’cause you’d just completely mong out. 1994 [M J G Day] Usenet: alt.drugs (Mar. 7) “Re: Which Is Better? Hash or Marijuana”: Black is good if you want to get that monged out feeling esp. opiated hash which gives you that smacked out feeling as well. 1995 Peter Beaumont, Roger Tredre Observer (U.K.) (Apr. 30) “No One’s Green When It Comes To Grass” p. 8: “Now, it’s no big deal: people will roll a joint and no one will bother to comment.” Mr Cripps agrees. “It is nothing to do with expanding the conciousness. It is about hedonism. In the East End of London, the kids call it being “monged out.’” 1996 [Simon O'Connor] Usenet: uk.music.rave (May 22) “Re: UMR.Manchester…”: Private sunday sessions or monging out down at the pub, sometimes sitting round getting stoned with a free-for-all on my decks. 1996 [John Upstone] Usenet: uk.music.rave (Oct. 25) “Re: Why I Love To Chill…”: I’m not normally too keen when people chill out by just monging out, saying nothing. 2000 Guardian (U.K.) (Dec. 1) “A regular guide to new bands heading your way” p. 25: Don’t buy if: You don’t think that http://www.popbitch.com’s description “music for monging” is the highest possible compliment. 2001 [Robyn, Duke of Amber] Usenet: alt.hentai.sailor-moon (Apr. 5) “Re: Cosplay lemons?”: Working on one but am curently munged out with the flu. 2005 [Doper] Usenet: alt.drugs.pot (Jan. 6) “Re: anyone use a aromed vaporizer”: I just bought a Vapir vaporisor.…Buzz seemed too mellow, used to much gear etc etc.…I’ve been blasting away all day, its rechargable so took it out to work, and it is a more subtle high, but now i’m getting used to it, a much nicer buzz. Much cleaner, i’m not feeling “monged out”…just really nicely stoned. 2005 Emer O'Kelly Sunday Independent (Ireland) (Apr. 24) “Don’t miss this almost perfect Doll”: Gary Duggan’s first stage play, Monged, is about three Dublin fellas on a three-day “monging” binge. 2005 Observer (U.K.) (July 3) “What’s the word: Sunday Face” p. 7: Sunday face originally referred to a righteous or sanctimonious facial expression, worn at or after church, or just generally.…Now it is used in the UK to refer to an almost total lack of facial expression, typically on a Sunday. This is the face of someone who’s “monging out” (lazing or coming down) after getting slantered. 2005 Daniel Cullen @ Oregon State University Daily Barometer (Corvallis, Ore.) (Nov. 23) “On the road to ‘Wasterville,’ USA”: These two students were quite a contrast to the homeless guy, who, I must say, I liked considerably more; he had no delusions of grandeur, unlike these perhaps too nicely groomed jocks, who felt it their mission for the night to talk to me about the “monging effects” of the morphine tablets they had both taken.

Posted 28 Nov 05 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader 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.

by David James Jones 17 Jan 07, 0605 GMT

Everyone I know uses the word in a sexual term. Look it up in the urban dictonary. Its more interesting.

by hannah 26 Apr 07, 0214 GMT

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.

by Grant Barrett 26 Apr 07, 1111 GMT

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?

by Kerry O'Flynn 27 Apr 07, 1050 GMT