hashish

Etymology

It is borrowed from Arabic حشيش (ḥašīš, “dry herb, hay; powdered hemp”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} which Barnhart derives from a verb meaning "it was dry".^[2] The revised OED finds a more complicated route: the earliest English forms came through Dutch assis, from New Latin assis, from the Arabic word; others came through lhasis, from the same word with the Arabic article; and only the later forms are probably direct borrowings from Arabic.^[8] The spelling haschisch follows German Haschisch.^[8] Klein relates the Arabic word to a Hebrew word for dried grass.^[9] The same Arabic source lies behind assassin.^{[2][10][11][9]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The hemp drug: 1598, in W. Phillip's translation of J. H. van Linschoten, with the form taken from the Dutch text of 1596.^[8][4][2] Etymonline calls this first English record a traveller's report from Egypt.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In Arabic the word first meant herbage, especially fodder, or hay, and then came to name Indian hemp and the narcotic prepared from it: the OED dates that use to the 10th century or earlier,^[8] Etymonline to the 13th.^[7] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories compares the way English came to use weed and grass for marijuana.^[10] The word stayed rare in English until the 19th century, when its present form appeared, and it spread through the larger languages of Western Europe at about the same time.^[7] Hash, the short form, is recorded from 1955 by Merriam-Webster, but from 1959 by Etymonline.^[4][7]

Timeline

• 1598 – the drug, in forms from the Dutch word.^[8][4][2]
• 1600 – forms from New Latin lhasis.^[8]
• early 19th century – the present form of the word.^[7]
• 1855 – Hashísh, in Richard Burton's Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah.^[1]
• 1955 – the short form hash.^[4] Etymonline says 1959.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The concentrated resin of the flowering tops of the female hemp plant, smoked, chewed or drunk as an intoxicant; cannabis resin.^[4][12][8]
2. A dried preparation of the flowering tops or other parts of the cannabis plant.^[8][1]
3. An intoxicating liquor prepared from cannabis.^[4][9]

Word family

• hash

Related words

• assassin

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins