Reefer
noun, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Someone who reefs sails, especially a midshipman.
"Her reefer cap was all on one side and on her cheek there was the print of an anchor button she had pressed on while sleeping."
- 2 A refrigerated, insulated trailer, ship or shipping container. US, colloquial
"Was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June In a Kenworth pullin' logs. Cab-over Pete with a reefer on And a Jimmy haulin' hogs."
- 3 A marijuana cigarette. countable, slang
- 4 marijuana leaves rolled into a cigarette for smoking wordnet
- 5 A reefer jacket; a close-fitting jacket or short coat of thick cloth.
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- 6 a refrigerator car (type of boxcar). US
- 7 Marijuana. slang, uncountable
"Daddy I don't want to go to school because the teacher's a jerk, he must think I'm a fool and all the kids smoke reefer, I think it'd be cheaper if I just got a job learned to be a street sweeper."
Example
More examples"Her reefer cap was all on one side and on her cheek there was the print of an anchor button she had pressed on while sleeping."
Etymology
From reef + -er.
Clipping of refrigerator.
Uncertain. Perhaps from Mexican Spanish grifa (“cannabis”) or Central American Spanish grifo (“someone who smokes cannabis”).
Related phrases
More for "reefer"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.