down n.3
(US) a diluted or even alcohol-free drink, as consumed by a ‘hostess’ who is persuading her client to buy hugely overpriced ‘champagne’ etc.
![]() | Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
![]() | Your Broadway & Mine 11 Dec. [synd. col.] The women [i.e. club hostesses] are given ‘downs’ by the bartender. A ‘down’ is a Delmonico glass full of ginger ale, but the spender thinks she is drinking likker. | |
![]() | True Drunkard’s Delight 229: Of course, there is small beer or down. | |
![]() | ‘So Proud to be Jimmy-jammy’ in Liebling at Home (1982) 191: The girls do not drink ‘downs’, — soft drinks represented to the customers as whiskey. | |
, | ![]() | DAS. |
![]() | Lively Commerce 171: ‘Downs’ enable her to give the customer the impression that she is drinking with him. |