Why is it called “Getting high”

Question

Is it related to the effect certain drugs have on your body or is there some other reason?

In: Culture

Answer 1

Sadly I don’t have the time to do the research necessary to answer this question properly, but I think it’s interesting. How did the word for “tall” come to mean “intoxicated”?

Here’s what I found: The Online Etymological Dictionary says that “high”, meaning “euphoric or exhilarated from alcohol” is first attested 1620s, and of drugs, 1932. And it says this sense of “high” shares the same etymology as “high” meaning both “physically elevated” and “exalted” (one root, dual meanings). Compare a “high mountain”, a “high priest”.

From there I can only speculate. Given the historical connection between religion and alcohol, my guess would be that this sense of “high” comes from the religious meaning rather than the geographical, but I can’t say for certain.