Canadian Slang For Cigarettes (Explained!)

In Canadian slang, cigarettes are usually referred to as darts or sometimes lung darts. Less commonly, you might hear them called bogies or rigs. Canada naturally shares a lot of slang with other countries, so it does use other slang terms such as cig, quirly and even scag.

Cigarettes are one of those day-to-day objects which get passed around and talked casually about all the time, so there are naturally a great many slang terms across all English speaking countries for them. Canada is no different, and has a highly varied lexicon of slang terms for cigarettes.

Let’s find out more.

What do Canadians call cigarettes?

Canadians have a few different ways of referring to cigarettes.

That said, there is one term that is by far the most common, and that is a dart.

You may be familiar with this term if you’ve ever looked into Australian slang for cigarettes, as this term is shared between Canada and Australia.

Dart is used virtually across the country.

Most English-speaking Canadians will understand this slang term, even if it’s not their first choice. “Could I bum a dart off you?” for example.

Another Canadian slang term for referring to cigarettes is bogie.

This one is a good deal less common, and tends to refer to a marijuana cigarette more often than just a cigarette.

That said, many will refer to cigarettes this way, though outside of any professional environments to avoid confusion!

Another, less common slang term is rig.

This refers also to a cigarette, though is perhaps going out of fashion to some extent now.

It has the clearer meaning simply of cigarette, rather than also potentially meaning a marijuana cigarette.

As I say, this one isn’t very commonly used anymore, but you may still hear it from time to time.

There are a handful of other terms which have, unsurprisingly, made their way into Canadian slang from elsewhere, too.

Cig is probably the best example.

This is a universal slang term understood if not used in virtually all English speaking corners of the world.

It’s more common in the UK than in North America, but is nonetheless used in both Canada and the U.S.

Finally, it’s safe to say that most slang terms widely used in the U.S. have some foothold in Canada.

Obscure terms such as quirly and scag, archaic as they are, are still heard in Canada.

Zig zag is another common slang term used in Canada.

Where do all these terms come from?

Why do Canadians say dart?

Dart was originally an Australian slang term for cigarette, which found its way into Canadian slang.

Obviously the word is much older than that, and the noun form meaning a pointed missile originates back in Old French.

Its spelling has remained unchanged since Middle English and further, though one French form of it was dard.

As best we can tell, the slang term simply arose out of the way that people tend to hold cigarettes.

They hold them between their fingers like you might hold a dart.

We don’t know when it took on this meaning, but it seems to have been sometime in the last century.

Why do Canadians say bogies?

Bogie is a word with a wide variety of meanings, depending where you are in the world.

In Canada, particularly in southern Ontario, it is a slang term for cigarettes, also.

It seems to come from the name Humphrey Bogart, an iconic movie star from the golden age of Hollywood.

His signature look usually came with a cigarette, and so particularly in the U.S. it quickly caught on to refer to them as Bogarts.

Over time, this became shortened to Bogie.

Again, this one also, for a time, and still to some people, exclusively referred to a marijuana cigarette, rather than a tobacco one.

But this usage was more popular in the U.S. In Canada, it pretty much always has meant cigarette.

Why do Canadians say rigs?

One rarer term which you may hear from time to time in Canada is rig.

This is probably the least common term on this list, and it was used a lot more in the past than it is today.

Nonetheless, many Canadians still use it or at least will understand what you mean by rig.

When it comes to its origins, we are mostly in the dark.

It’s not completely clear when this term came into use, although it was probably derived from the “dab rigs” which were used to smoke marijuana.

Do Canadians say cig?

Yes, Canadians do say cig, although it is far from the most common slang term Canadians use.

Cig is perhaps most common in the U.K., where it has mostly supplanted the more old fashioned “fag”.

But cig is also in use across North America, being used in many parts of the United States as well as throughout Canada.

Simple abbreviations like this often spread like linguistic wildfire, so it is not much surprise that Canadians have adopted the word cig.

Nevertheless, dart is still by far the most common term.

Canadians are by no means short on options for slang terms for referring to cigarettes, then.

That said, overwhelmingly the most common slang term used for cigarettes in Canada is dart.

This one is timeless and geographically more or less universal, being a short, sharp, punchy slang term for cigarettes.

But you’ll still hear other terms if you’re there for any length of time.

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