Idiom
what was someone smoking
Meaning
Used to express surprise about someone's uncharacteristic or wacky, offbeat past actions.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“He bought a pet tiger; what was he smoking?”
“She wore a giant banana suit to the wedding; what was she smoking?”
“You painted your entire kitchen bright neon purple; what were you smoking?”
“When I saw the strange design for the new office building, I wondered what the architect was smoking.”
“Your brother decided to quit his stable job to become a professional unicycle rider, and I honestly want to know what he was smoking.”
“The coach put the smallest player on the team in as the goalkeeper during the finals, leaving the fans wondering what he was smoking.”
“I looked at my old social media posts from ten years ago and truly wondered what I was smoking when I wrote those things.”
“Looking back at the absurd business decisions made by the board last year, one cannot help but wonder what they were smoking.”
Examples
simple
“He bought a pet tiger; what was he smoking?”
“She wore a giant banana suit to the wedding; what was she smoking?”
“You painted your entire kitchen bright neon purple; what were you smoking?”
contextual
“When I saw the strange design for the new office building, I wondered what the architect was smoking.”
“Your brother decided to quit his stable job to become a professional unicycle rider, and I honestly want to know what he was smoking.”
“The coach put the smallest player on the team in as the goalkeeper during the finals, leaving the fans wondering what he was smoking.”
“I looked at my old social media posts from ten years ago and truly wondered what I was smoking when I wrote those things.”
complex
“Looking back at the absurd business decisions made by the board last year, one cannot help but wonder what they were smoking.”
Origin
From the late 20th century, a rhetorical inquiry suggesting the interlocutor has been smoking mind-altering drugs. The phrase functions as a critique of a particularly incoherent or illogical proposition by attributing the error to chemical impairment.
Key words
Related idioms
- Updated