Gack
intj, noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Crystal meth. slang, uncountable
- 2 Powder cocaine. slang, uncountable
"—What, an he deals gack on the side? / —Aye, yeh. Dead easy for him to get a hold of, innit? / —How's that, well? / —Every fuckin ozzy's gorra supply of charlie, Dar. Skag n all. Best fuckin painkillers goin, lar."
- 1 To make a sharp, sudden sound in one's throat, such as before vomiting or while coughing, gagging, etc. intransitive
"I slipped the punch, dropped the paper, and closed my right hand around his throat. I backed him into his desk and pushed him onto his back. […] He rubbed his throat, gacked like a cat spitting up a hair ball."
- 2 To call in response to disturbance.
"During a disturbance the young run to the water and dive from fear, […] On other occasions the adults swim or walk about, incessantly gacking."
- 3 To do something that causes a sharp, sudden sound in one's throat.; To vomit, throw up. intransitive
"I mean, if cheese could make me gack, you know that poop snake, coiled around that worthless pen, wasn't going to calm my jumpy stomach down."
- 4 To do something that causes a sharp, sudden sound in one's throat.; To cough something up. transitive
"It reminded me of the time Willy tried to get a whole hamburger in his mouth on a bet. […] he almost choked to death before we figured out how to do the Heimlich maneuver on him. […] finally Pete Honer said, "He's turning blue," and we all just grabbed something and squeezed and he gacked it up and out. Pickles and all."
- 5 To do something that causes a sharp, sudden sound in one's throat.; To choke (be unable to breathe because of obstruction of the windpipe) intransitive
"[…] Chutsky came around and kicked the other one in the throat, so hard I could hear it crack, and he went over backward making gacking noises and clutching at his windpipe.u"
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- 6 To do something that causes a sharp, sudden sound in one's throat.; To choke (experience tightness in one's throat as a result of strong emotion) intransitive
"My throat made some gacking noises, though. No, no crying! Stiff lip, stiff lip, stiff lip—you got an interview! I stood in the kitchen, shaking and swallowing everything down."
- 1 A sharp, sudden sound from someone's throat while they're coughing, vomiting, gagging, etc.
"Sports was immediately consigned to a recycle pile where it was handy in case she heard the unmistakable gack-gack-gack machine-gun regurgitation sound of Midnight Louie about to deposit a hairball on some particularly cherished piece of paper or furniture."
- 2 The sound of a bird's call in response to disturbance.
"It was a big downy chick, about twenty-three days old. […] Steve shot ptargmigan for it, and every time it ate or saw Steve it would scream, Gack gack gack gack, […]"
- 3 An expression of disgust or disapproval.
"The family wanted me to try marmite, which is some sort of dark brown yeast extract that many Kiwis seem to enjoy. […] The family asked me to try it saying that it "tastes better than it smells." They were completely wrong. Gack! No more marmite for this boy."
- 4 An expression of trepidation.
"“Gack,” said Judith. “I don’t remember that. I wish you hadn’t. […]”"
Example
More examples"Sports was immediately consigned to a recycle pile where it was handy in case she heard the unmistakable gack-gack-gack machine-gun regurgitation sound of Midnight Louie about to deposit a hairball on some particularly cherished piece of paper or furniture."
Etymology
Apparently onomatopoeic and believed to have first appeared in comic strips. Compare gag (“to choke; to retch”) and hack (“to cough noisily”). The "cocaine" and "meth" senses apparently comes from the fact that snorting the drugs often activates a person's gag reflex.
Apparently onomatopoeic. Compare German gack (“call of a hen”), German gackern (“(of a chicken) to loudly and repetitive cry”), and Dutch gakken (“(of a goose) to honk”). Comparison to more terms Pokorny compared German gackern to words including English gaggle, Latvian gâgát (“cry like a goose”), Russian gogotátь (gogotátʹ, “(of geese) cackle; laugh loudly”), Old Norse gaga (“mock, ridicule”), and Albanian gogësínj (“yawn, burp”), among others. Pokorny considered common origin or separate innovation both as possibilities to explain the similarities.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.