More Definitions for jones. English Language Learners Definition of jones Entry 1 of 2. Get Word of the Day daily email! Test Your Vocabulary.
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Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? How 'literally' can mean "figuratively". Literally How to use a word that literally drives some pe Is Singular 'They' a Better Choice? Jones n. H[erbert] L[. S[outhern and] N[orthern] U[se. JONES 1 A strong, overwhelming desire for anything you indulge in or acquire and never get enough of—money, sex, chocolate, gambling, clothes, etc. Originally referred to addition to heroin or cocaine.
Pop-culture landmarks such as Trainspotting note the similarity of intense feeling between heroin and sex. If they are to be believed, it is not surprising that a slang term such as jones might begin by referring to one of the two and later be applied to the other as Lighter seems to imply.
Alternatively, as Green suggests, the two terms may have evolved independently of one another. I am not persuaded by the claim evidently proposed by the Online Rap Dictionary some 37 years after the earliest instance of jones that Lighter cites that jones originally alluded to Jones Alley in Manhattan. It's a simple, convenient explanation, but as far as I know it has no paper trail to back it up.
Here is the complete entry for jones in the Online Rap Dictionary :. Jones noun A craving for something. It is said to come from Jones Alley in Manhattan where junkies used to live. Blige You're all I need []. That's not much of a factual basis to hang a dictionary etymology on. I might be more inclined to take the claimed source seriously if Claude Brown, whose semi-autobiographical novel Manchild in the Promised Land is set in Harlem above th Street in Manhattan and refers to "a jones"—in the drug sense—at least four times, had mentioned Jones Alley or Great Jones Street which are located in NoHo, the area just north of Houston Street, between Greenwich Village and the East Village even once; but he doesn't.
Great Jones Street is relevant because a competing folk etymology noted on WordWizard cites that Manhattan street as the origin of jones in the sense of addiction. Specifically, a person named Shelley, posting on March 23, , offers this squib:. The feature features a timeline of the development, deterioration and renaissance of the street, and includes the following:. The term 'Jonesing' enters the language as junkies and dealers come and go from the alley next door.
Indeed, the timeline item rather cleverly avoids claiming any explicit cause-and-effect relation between the events "Mingus moves to Great Jone Street" and "People start using the term 'jonesing' for addiction"; instead, it merely reports the two events in proximity to each other and leaves it to readers like Shelley to make the connection themselves.
You'll find jones and jonesing in literature pertaining to prohibition times. However, the term still sees occasional use as a noun experiencing a taco jones or as simple verb He jonesed for the woman. This is not meant to be a formal definition of jonesing like most terms we define on Dictionary.
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OK Set preferences. Where did the term "jonesing" originate? Fred Keogh. Too localised to be a part of a worldwide quiz in my opinion. Dec 31, AM. Pat Salloum. I had never heard the expression. Perhaps its usage is partly based on location and partly on who one is hanging out with!! Nov 19, AM. Howard Gerritsen M.
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