stoned

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. verb kill by throwing stones at
  2. verb remove the pits from
  3. adjective under the influence of narcotics

Etymology

From Middle English stoned (simple past) and stoned, istoned (past participle), equivalent to stone + -ed. The etymology for the sense of "exhilarated, intoxicated by substances", which originated in American English in the mid-20th century, is not fully clear. It could be derived from stone drunk, a common slang expression from the mid-19th to early-20th century. It is more frequently theorized to be a phono-semantic matching of Italian-American slang stunod (“dazzled, stupid”), from Italian stonato (“out of tune, off-key”). In 1952, Life Magazine listed it in a glossary of bop musician slang, in the sense of "drunk, captivated, ecstatic, sent out of this world" (see quote). This could lend further credence to the idea of the word originating from a musical term.

Synonyms

stone, lapidate

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