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head shop

head shop

3 8.2
A shop that sells pipes and rolling papers for smoking drugs
  • noun
  • /hɛd ʃɑp/
  • NSFW
translation icon : tienda de parafernalia
  • Gill got a job at a head shop in Huntington Beach, selling bongs and cherry-flavored rolling papers.
  • head shop sells
  • local head shop

And fairly quickly he he falls into a job managing a head shop.

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Examples

  • Yeah, retired cop goes to work for his hippie girlfriend in her head shop.

  • I had a good giggle looking through there; it is the biggest, most amazing head shop I have ever seen!

    Blog text (21)
  • Bob, she owns a head shop.

  • The best online head shop in the USA.

    Blog text (9)
  • She wrote him almost daily on stationery with psychedelic filigree, which she'd bought at a head shop.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • The DEA began investigating the head shops in November 2011 in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies after fielding complaints about Spice and drug paraphernalia sales, according to court documents.

    Blog text (19)
  • On the weekend, we visited a head shop to look at unique glass pipes.

  • He purchased some new rolling papers at the local head shop before the concert.

  • The head shop displayed a variety of products, including vaporizers and flavored tobacco.

How Specialized

head shop
  • NSFW
3 8.2
tobacco shop
  • US
1 1.8
drugstore
  • US
103 1.0
general store
16 2.1

Surface Forms

head shop singular
head shops plural

Morphology

head + shop

Given the provided sense of 'head' as slang for a drug user and 'shop' as a place to buy goods, a learner who knows that slang sense can infer a shop associated with drug users and paraphernalia. However, the slang sense of 'head' is specialized and not the default meaning for many learners, and the compound is culture-specific, so the link is only partially predictable.

Etymology

Head shop likely comes from the word head used to mean a drug user, as in the word 'pothead'. A head shop was a shop where these 'heads' bought pipes, rolling papers and other items for using drugs, so today it means 'a store that sells items for using drugs'.