Pot

From Mexican Spanish potiguaya or potaguaya, a clipping of potación de guaya ("drink of grief") — wine or brandy steeped with cannabis leaves. Etymonline and the OED date the English slang to 1938 (Chester Himes, "The Way We Live Now"), emerging from African-American jazz circles and mainstreamed by 1960s journalism. ⚠️ Etymology disputed: lexicographer David Maurer supported the potiguaya derivation, but Allen Brown (1958) proposed a "teapot" pun, and Robert S. Gold suggested a flowerpot-cultivation origin; none are securely documented.