Cannabis or marijuana, especially as smoked in North Africa and the Middle East. Also refers to a state of dreamy intoxication or pleasure.
From Arabic كَيْف (kayf), meaning 'pleasure,' 'enjoyment,' or 'how.' The word entered English through French kief in the 19th century during colonial contact with North Africa. It originally described the euphoric state rather than the substance itself.
The word 'kif' originally meant 'pleasure' or even just 'how' in Arabic, showing how the substance became so associated with enjoyment that the word for the feeling became the word for the drug! European travelers to Morocco encountered both the practice and the poetic language surrounding it.
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