A bong, also commonly known as a water pipe, is a smoking device, normally used to smoke cannabis Cannabis (drug)

Cannabis, also known as Marijuana or marihuana, or ganja , is a psychoactive drug extracted from the plant Cannabis sativa, or more often, Cannabis sativa subsp...., tobacco Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the new leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicines...., or other substances. The construction of a bong and its principle of action is similar to that of the hookah Hookah

A hookah is a single or multi-stemmed water pipe for smoking. Originally from alongside the borders of India and Pakistan, the hookah has gained immense popularity, especially in the Middle East....
, which is also called "water pipe." A bong may be constructed from any air- and water-tight vessel by adding a bowl and stem apparatus (a slide). The word bong is an adaptation of the Thai
Thai language

Thai , is the national language and official language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group....
 word baung , a cylindrical wood
Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs, etc....
en tube, pipe
Pipe

selfref|For Wikipedia guidelines on the use of "pipe links", see... or container cut from bamboo Bamboo

The bamboos are a group of woody perennial plant evergreen plants in the accurate grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae...., and which also refers to the bong used for smoking. Bongs have been in use, primarily by the Hmong Hmong

Hmong may refer to:*Hmong people, an ethnic group in China and Southeast Asia*Hmong language, a cluster of closely related Hmong-Mien languages...
, in Laos
Laos

Laos , officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and People's Republic of China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west.... and Thailand Thailand

The Kingdom of Thailand is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Laos and Myanmar, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and Myanmar....
, for centuries. One of the earliest recorded uses of the word in the West is the McFarland Thai-English Dictionary, published in 1944, which describes one of the meanings of bong in the Thai language as, "a bamboo waterpipe for smoking kancha, tree, hashish, or the hemp-plant." A January 1971 issue of the Marijuana Review also used the term.