gas
/gass/adjective · noun
Meaning
As informal slang, gas means excellent, impressive, exciting, or extremely enjoyable. It can describe music, food, clothes, jokes, performances, games, parties, or almost anything that earns strong approval. In older usage, a gas or it was a gas meant a very fun time; in some contexts, gas can also mean high-quality marijuana.[2]
- 1. Something excellent, impressive, or high-quality: That new track is gas.
- 2. Something exciting, entertaining, or intensely enjoyable: The whole match was gas.
- 3. A fun time or enjoyable event, usually in the phrase a gas or it was a gas.
- 4. High-quality marijuana, especially in cannabis-related slang.
Examples
“That beat is gas.”
“The new menu is straight gas.”
“Your jacket is gas, where'd you get it?”
“That last-minute goal was pure gas.”
“The party was a gas, even after the power went out.”
Origin and spread
The positive slang sense is separate from the ordinary scientific word gas, which entered English in the 1650s, and from gas meaning gasoline. Historical accounts place gas meaning something exciting or excellent in U.S. slang by the 1950s; Etymonline connects it with the earlier slang noun gasser, documented in the same general sense in 1944. The older phrase a gas referred to a fun or amusing experience, while the bare adjective seen in current online speech applies the praise directly to a song, outfit, meal, performance, or other object. The word also has an independent Anglo-Irish sense meaning fun or a joke.[1][3]
How to use it
Gas is strongly informal and works best in texts, group chats, comments, gaming talk, and casual speech. It usually signals enthusiastic approval, but context matters: gas can also refer to fuel, bodily gas, empty talk, or marijuana. Do not confuse this adjective with gas someone up, which means to hype or flatter someone.
Sources
- 1. Online Etymology Dictionary — Gas: Etymology and HistorySupports: origin, earliest documented use.
- 2. CBS News — How to speak teen: Then and nowSupports: meaning.
- 3. Idiom Origins — Gas: History of GasSupports: origin.
