Where does the slang adjective “peng” come from?
Solution 1:
I've never heard it, but peng is UK slang of Jamaican Patois origin. It now means anything good, or someone attractive. It earlier referred to strong marijuana in the UK, and marijuana in Jamaica.
UK slang
It appears to have become popular in London or Nottingham some five or six years ago, and has spread. For some very recent examples, check this Twitter search, and use this map of Twitter results to see the geographical spread. At the time of writing, it's being used mostly in England: a cluster in the north (Leeds, Huddersfield, Mirfield), Milton Keynes, Merseyside and London. Here's an example tweet (also with the opposite, deng):
Today was gunna be peng, but now its gunna be deng, my dads a deng'ed.
The top definition at Urban Dictionary is from 2006:
Sexy girl.
Adjective'There's some PENG over there'
'Shes proper Peng!'
The earliest from 2003:
good quality/strong flavour (in drug terms)
"that is some peng skunk!"
And the most recent from 2012 covers all three meanings:
Really nice weed, usually high grade in the form of cheese, haze or kush. Can also be used to describe anything of exceptional quality, including people, but primarily it is a weed term.
1-"That strawberry haze you had last night was the peng"
2-"Cheese on toast is peng"
3-"Your mum is peng"
Some highlights from a recent discussion on Digital Spy from January 2012:
It's been around for at least 5 or 6 years that word, it's nothing new. Used to use it quite a lot myself, still do sometimes
It's what chavs say. I blame 'grime' music.
I would have to echo the above. I've been hearing it the last 5 years. I was just finishing college during the time (around 17-18), I was hearing that and other annoying words and could barely stand hearing people talking like that.
Peng was definitley a thing in London a few years back- everyone said it (well, apart from me, I still think words like charming, bloomful and comely wench are cutting edge ways of describing somebody attractive).
Hear it loads here in Nottingham.
I'm 17, I can't bring myself to say the word because I hate it so much. A few months ago I noticed some people on Facebook adding an account known as 'Britain's Pengest Teens'. It was filled with sent-in pictures of chavs doing ridiculous poses in the mirror. I just rolled my eyes when I saw it.
As far as I know its of Jamaican origin Its not new. Peng was used to describe high quality weed.It then became to mean someone who is really good looking. A lot of the London slang words are Jamaican in origin. They become popular through music and black Londoners links with the Caribbean. They then become commonly used in schools with the younger londoners (other large cities) and become part of London slang. Remember the old chestnut "wicked" as in wicked pair of trainers. That is probably thought of as UK slang when it is in fact Jamaican.
It's been around for ages In Essex/East London, almost out of date now. The latest teenage slang is P for money and yard for home. Drives me mad when my son says it, why not just say money or home grrrrrrrr.
How nice that we needn't bother to even pretend to welcome this word, which seems to have gone straight from niche to obsolete bypassing mainstream.
Jamaican Patois roots
In 1985, Frankie Paul ("Jamaica' Stevie Wonder") released a song called "Pass the Ku-Sheng Peng", sometimes spelled "Pass the Tu-Shung Peng", about smoking marijuana. You can listen to it on YouTube, the word sounds like "ku-shum-peng". And U-Brown released a 1983 song and album called Tu Sheng Peng (YouTube).
Some definitions.
2002, The A-Z Encyclopedia of Alcohol and Drug Abuse:
Kushempeng Colloquial term for marijuana.
Kutchie Colloquial term for marijuana.
(Could it be related to kutchie? See also Mighty Diamonds' 1981 "Pass the Kutchie" song.)
2006, Jabari: Authentic Jamaican Dictionary of the Jamic Language:
peng (péng): n. - the shortened form of kunshungpeng; marijuana
kushungpeng (kü-shung-péng): n. - marijuana; (see ganga)
2007, The concise new Partridge dictionary of slang and unconventional English
kushempeng *noun* marijuana UK 2001
I can't find much about this Patois term's origins, apart from an Urban Dictionary claim it's "Chinese term for marijuana" and a second claiming kushumpeng "word is considered to have French origin, but is used all over the world", and another says kushempeng is French, but found nothing to back those up.