drunk n.
1. (orig. US, also drunk up) a bout of drinking, usu. to excess or oblivion.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | letter 8 June in 15th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. (1897) Appendix VI 430: They [i.e. American soldiers] call a month’s pay, which is 53s. 4d. paper money, but three drunks. Rum, 30 dollars a gallon . | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Adventures of Harry Franco II 78: I have kept money enough to have a good drunk. | |
| Bell’s Penny Dispatch 27 Mar. 3/4: ‘[S]he’s not got over her drunk of last night’. | |
| My Diary in America II 374: The ‘bhoy’ who has been having a ‘big drunk’ on the previous night falls an easy prey to the crafty crimp. | |
| Sketches of the Cattle Trade 187: A part of the committee would be unavoidably absent [...] or off on a big drunk. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 15 July 3/2: We suggest that [...] all companies, together with the managers from everywhere, combine and hire a Coney Island hotel to hold their annual convention and ‘drunk’ in . | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 11/4: The rum-inspired imaginations of the town topers will be able to improve on them. Anyhow, it is something to know that a man can go on a comfortable drunk at last. | |
| Bird o’ Freedom 1 Jan. 2/3: The poor scribe goes on a month’s drunk. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 29: Upon wakening after a prolonged drunk. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | N.Z. Truth 4 Aug. 6/4: Incarceration induces profound melcancholia in some people, especially when recovering from a ‘drunk’. | |
| Bemidji Dly Pioneer (MN) 18 Oct. 4/2: One Drunk Up. Berk Harcourt was hailed before Crowell on a charge of intoxication. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 239: I am sick. I was out last night on a yellow drunk with Horan and Goggins. | |
| Ulysses 11: Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. — We’ll have a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. | |
| (con. 1916) Her Privates We (1986) 56: What he needed was to go on a big drunk somewhere. | |
| Townsville Daily Bull. 27 Aug. 5/2: Months will pass before we have another drunk-up and jollifications. | |
| Paradise Flow 120: Muranivich’s ‘drunks’ were fearsome things. Alcohol stimulated every nerve to activity. | |
| Long Day’s Journey into Night Act III: Lately Vi’s gone on drunks and been too boiled to play. | |
| Long Wait (1954) 150: Let the guy enjoy his drunk and maybe he’d feel better to-morrow. | |
| City of Night 205: Everyone should be drunk [...] Whole fuckin world on one great big endless: Durrunk! | |
| Come Monday Morning 45: One more drunk in here like the last one, old buddy, it’s all over ... all over! | |
| Mighty Men on Horseback 174: He goes to town for a drunk up. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 56: They were both passed out from their drunk. | |
| (con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 368: On a drunk, which is where I’m going. | |
| Grand Central Winter (1999) 8: Muttering under my breath like an old wino on a three-day drunk. | |
| (con. 1954) Tomato Can Comeback [ebook] I went on a drunk after the Braxton fight and was a real heel to her. |
2. a session of opium smoking.
| In Strange Company 238: They had come for a ‘drunk,’ and would probably indulge in half-a-dozen more pipes before the evening was over. |
3. (US drugs) the effects of inhaling cocaine.
 | Charlotte News (NC) 3 Apr. 9/1: Enough can be bought [...] to get on a cocaine drunk. | |
| Wilmington Morn. Star (NC) 15 Sept. 5/2: The negroes sniff the cocaine, and the drunk is on in two minutes. |
In compounds
1. (US) the state of being drunk.
| Village 124: Ike [...] wasn’t good enough a customer with his periodic drunk-ons, on cheap liquor, to make it worth pampering him. | |
| Swollen Red Sun 8: [He] was known to have a mean drunk-on come evening. |
2. attrib, use of sense 1.
| Village 233: We’ll have to stage some intimate drunk-on parties when we get back to the city. |
In phrases
see under dry adj.1
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(Aus.) a short prison sentence, as given to one convicted of being drunk and disorderly.
| ‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiv 4/3: drunk’s lagging: A short prison sentence. | |
| Aus. Journal of Cultural Studies May 91: One year: A Sleeper. / Six months: A Zac. / Three months: A Drunk’s Lagging. / Indefinite detention at the governor’s pleasure: The Key. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Drunk’s lagging. Literally the short sentence once served by drunks. Now any short sentence. Often used contemptuously. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 104/1: drunk’s lagging (also drunk’s lag) an extremely short sentence. [this sentence is normally of about 7-10 days' duration, no longer than 2 weeks]. | |
| Intractable [ebook] ‘Bill the Tubby’ an old crim on the last day of a drunk’s lagging. |
see tank n.2 (2)
In phrases
(US) oyster stew.
| Waukesha (WI) Freeman 24 Jan. 3?/3: ‘Drunk with a bad cold’ – oyster stew. |