# Marijuana (word)
**Marijuana** is the English name for a preparation of *Cannabis sativa* used as an intoxicant, generally by smoking, borrowed from [Mexican Spanish](https://www.edgepedia.org/mexican-spanish) *marihuana* (also spelled *mariguana*), a word of uncertain origin.[1](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana) The term is etymologically mysterious: no source for the word has been established, and the familiar association with the Spanish names María and Juana is generally treated as a folk etymology (popular but false word-origin story reshaping a term).[2](https://cannabisfreedom.fyi/culture/language/marijuana/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Meaning | A preparation of *Cannabis sativa* used as an intoxicant, generally by smoking[1](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana) |
| Source language | Mexican Spanish *marihuana* / *mariguana*, of uncertain origin[1](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana) • [3](https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/pdf/620) |
| First English attestation | 1874, in Hubert Howe Bancroft's *The native races of the Pacific states of North America*, as "mariguana"; the OED dates the English word to 1894[4](https://www.inhn.org/inhn-projects/ebooks/peter-r-martin-historical-vocabulary-of-addiction/cannabis) • [3](https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/pdf/620) |
| The "Mary Jane" link | Influence of the Spanish proper name Maria Juana is a folk etymology, probably not the true source[1](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana) • [5](https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-91232561-OPP-8.pdf) |
| US usage surge | The word's currency increased greatly in the United States in the 1930s, preferred as a more exotic alternative to hemp and cannabis[3](https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/pdf/620) |
| US federal spelling | Federal law still uses "marihuana" with an h, a spelling artifact of the 1937 act[6](https://historyofcannabis.org/prohibition/marihuana-word) |
| Spanish dictionary record | *Marihuana* first entered the Real Academia Española's dictionary in 1956[7](https://iedra.es/palabras/marihuana) |
## An unresolved origin
Dictionaries consistently label the Mexican Spanish source word of uncertain origin, and etymologists have proposed candidates from several directions without reaching agreement.[1](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana) • [3](https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/pdf/620) Etymonline adds a botanical constraint on indigenous-origin theories: since the hemp plant was not native to Mexico, a native source for the word seems unlikely.[1](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana)
**Proposed candidates.** The Oxford English Dictionary has recorded a suggestion deriving the word from Nahuatl *mallihuan*, meaning "prisoner"; the linguist Jason Haugen finds no basis for it in meaning and suspects a chance resemblance.[2](https://cannabisfreedom.fyi/culture/language/marijuana/) The geographer Chris Duvall has proposed Kimbundu *mariamba*, a Central African word for the plant brought across the Atlantic by enslaved people from Angola, noting that Central African names for the plant survive across the Atlantic world.[2](https://cannabisfreedom.fyi/culture/language/marijuana/) A study of Nahuatl loanwords in English concludes that until additional positive evidence is brought forward, *marijuana* should be rejected as a Nahuatl loan.[8](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305849088_Borrowed_Borrowings_Nahuatl_Loan_Words_in_English)
**The María Juana story.** The traditional explanation ties the word to the Spanish personal name María Juana, "Mary Jane". Etymonline treats the English spelling as altered by the influence of that name, from *mariguan* (1894).[1](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana) The OED's notes likewise record the influence of a folk etymology from María-Juana or its familiar form Mari-Juana.[3](https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/pdf/620) Earlier speculative attempts go back further in Mexico: the doctor Leonardo Oliva, in *Lecciones de Farmacología* (1853), proposed that the name combined *Mari* (María) and *huana* ("Rosa"), a hypothesis the Mexican writer Jorge García-Robles judges partly plausible but unsupported.[9](https://www.milenio.com/cultura/etimologia-y-modismos-de-la-mariguana_2)
## Arrival in English
The earliest widely cited English attestation is a passage in Hubert Howe Bancroft's 1874 *The native races of the Pacific states of North America*, in which the bride's parents send round a bunch of "mariguana, a narcotic herb", signaling a gathering at the bride's father's house the next night.[4](https://www.inhn.org/inhn-projects/ebooks/peter-r-martin-historical-vocabulary-of-addiction/cannabis) A review of the word's history notes that dictionaries usually cite *Scribner's* 1894 as the earliest recorded use, referring to a spell-casting herb called "mariguan".[10](https://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp153_marijuana.pdf) Etymonline, by contrast, dates the English noun in its modern sense to 1918.[1](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana)
**The 1930s surge.** The word's use increased greatly in the United States in the 1930s, in the context of the debate over the drug, the Spanish term being preferred as a more exotic alternative to the familiar words hemp and cannabis.[3](https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/pdf/620) American newspapers had carried both marihuana-type and marijuana-type spellings from the 1890s onward, and by mid-century the j-spelling had become dominant in English-language journalism, advertising, and postwar state legislation.[6](https://historyofcannabis.org/prohibition/marihuana-word)
The word carried into slang: Mary Jane has been slang for marijuana since 1928, and *juju*, a marijuana cigarette attested from 1940, is supposedly a reduplication of the middle syllable of marijuana.[1](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana)
## Spelling and standing in Spanish
Spanish has two accepted spellings, marihuana and mariguana, which are pronounced the same. The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas states that *marijuana*, with a j, is not correct in Spanish, and that the g-variant *mariguana* alternates with *marihuana* especially in Mexico and some Central American countries.[11](https://www.fundeu.es/blog/encuesta-mariguana-o-marihuana/) The j-form appears to be an English innovation that later passed back into Spanish and French.[2](https://cannabisfreedom.fyi/culture/language/marijuana/)
The word entered the Real Academia Española's *Diccionario de la lengua española* in 1956.[7](https://iedra.es/palabras/marihuana) The earliest Spanish dictionary reference to *mariguana* is older still: the *Farmacopea mexicana*, published by the Academia Farmacéutica in 1846, already relates the word to Rosa María.[9](https://www.milenio.com/cultura/etimologia-y-modismos-de-la-mariguana_2)
## Relation to "cannabis"
The two names entered English by very different routes and dates. Cannabis came into English in 1798 meaning "common hemp", from the Modern Latin genus name *Cannabis*, coined in 1728, from Greek *kannabis* "hemp", itself a Scythian or Thracian word.[12](https://www.etymonline.com/word/cannabis) Marijuana arrived from Mexican Spanish more than a century later, in the 1870s to 1890s.[3](https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/pdf/620) • [4](https://www.inhn.org/inhn-projects/ebooks/peter-r-martin-historical-vocabulary-of-addiction/cannabis) The plant itself reached Mexico with the Spanish in the 16th century as an industrial fiber crop, and the drug from it acquired strongly negative associations in 19th-century Mexico before the word migrated north into English and US drug politics; Mexico banned the drug in 1920.[13](https://time.com/5572691/420-marijuana-mexican-immigration/)
## References
1. [Marijuana, Etymology, Origin and Meaning, Online Etymology Dictionary](https://www.etymonline.com/word/marijuana)
2. [Marijuana, Language, Cannabis Freedom Index](https://cannabisfreedom.fyi/culture/language/marijuana/)
3. [The OED's etymological notes on marijuana, quoted in Lexis 3 (Borrowing)](https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/pdf/620)
4. [Cannabis, Peter R. Martin Historical Vocabulary of Addiction, INHN](https://www.inhn.org/inhn-projects/ebooks/peter-r-martin-historical-vocabulary-of-addiction/cannabis)
5. [Dictionary exhibit, USPTO TTAB proceeding (Word Origin and History for marijuana)](https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-91232561-OPP-8.pdf)
6. [Weaponization of "Marihuana" — A Word Did the Work, History of Cannabis](https://historyofcannabis.org/prohibition/marihuana-word)
7. [Marihuana, Iedra (lexicographic history of the RAE entry)](https://iedra.es/palabras/marihuana)
8. [Borrowed Borrowings: Nahuatl Loan Words in English](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305849088_Borrowed_Borrowings_Nahuatl_Loan_Words_in_English)
9. [Jorge García-Robles, Etimología y modismos de la mariguana, Milenio](https://www.milenio.com/cultura/etimologia-y-modismos-de-la-mariguana_2)
10. [Alan Piper, The Mysterious Origins of the Word 'Marihuana', Sino-Platonic Papers 153](https://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp153_marijuana.pdf)
11. [Encuesta: ¿Mariguana o marihuana?, FundéuRAE](https://www.fundeu.es/blog/encuesta-mariguana-o-marihuana/)
12. [Cannabis, Etymology, Origin and Meaning, Online Etymology Dictionary](https://www.etymonline.com/word/cannabis)
13. [The Surprising Link Between U.S. Marijuana Law and the History of Immigration, TIME](https://time.com/5572691/420-marijuana-mexican-immigration/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Languages and linguistics › Linguistics › Language change, history, and social variation › Etymology and word origins*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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