drink

• dhrink (pronunciation spelling, imitating an Irish accent)
• drank (slang)
• drinck, drinke (obsolete)
• thrink (pronunciation spelling)

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: drĭngk, IPA^(key): /dɹɪŋk/, [d̠ɹ̠˔ʷɪŋk]

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

From Middle English drinken, from Old English drincan (“to drink, swallow up, engulf”), from Proto-West Germanic *drinkan, from Proto-Germanic *drinkaną (“to drink”), of uncertain origin; possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrenǵ- (“to draw into one's mouth, sip, gulp”), nasalised variant of *dʰreǵ- (“to draw, glide”).

drink (third-person singular simple present drinks, present participle drinking, simple past drank or (southern US) drunk or (nonstandard) drinked, past participle drunk or (chiefly archaic) drunken or (dialectal) drank or (all nonstandard, archaic or obsolete) drinked or drinken or dranken)

1. (ambitransitive) To consume (a liquid) through the mouth.

   Synonyms: gulp, imbibe, quaff, sip, see Thesaurus:drink

   He drank the water I gave him.

   You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Nouember. Ægloga Vndecima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, […], →OCLC, folio 47, recto:

     […] There liues ſhee with the bleſſed Gods in bliſſe: / There drinks the Nectar with Ambroſia mixt […]

   • 1857–1858, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, The Virginians. A Tale of the Last Century, volume I, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1858, →OCLC, page 283:

     It was he who proposed the bowl of punch, which was brewed and drunk in Mrs. Betty’s room, and which Gumbo concocted with exquisite skill.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired.

2. (transitive, metonymic) To consume the liquid contained within (a bottle, glass, etc.).

   Jack drank the whole bottle by himself.

3. (intransitive) To consume alcoholic beverages.

   Synonyms: drink alcohol, booze

   Near-synonyms: hit the bottle, hit the sauce

   You've been drinking, haven't you?

   No thanks, I don't drink.

   Everyone who is drinking is drinking, but not everyone who is drinking is drinking.

   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:

     I drink to the general joy of the whole table, / And to our dear friend Banquo.

   • 1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. […] , volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] Smith, Elder, & Company, […], →OCLC:

     Bolingbroke always spoke freely when he had drunk freely.

   • 1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 168:

     The waiter came up, and I ordered a Coke for her—she didn't drink—and a Scotch and soda for myself, but the sonuvabitch wouldn't bring me one, so I had a Coke, too.

   • 2007, Matthew Weiner, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, in Mad Men, season 1, episode 1, spoken by Roger Sterling:

     You don't know how to drink. Your whole generation, you drink for the wrong reasons. My generation, we drink because it's good, because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar, because we deserve it. We drink because it's what men do.

4. (transitive) To take in (a liquid), in any manner; to suck up; to absorb; to imbibe.
   • 1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     Let the purple violets drink the stream.

5. (transitive) To take in; to receive within one, through the senses; to inhale; to hear; to see.
   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

     My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words / Of that tongue's utterance.

   • 1717, Alexander Pope, “Eloisa to Abelard”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], published 1717, →OCLC:
   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “(please specify |part=Prologue or Rpilogue, or |canto=I to CXXIX)”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:

     to drink the cooler air

6. (transitive, archaic) To toast (someone or something) with a drink, honour; to wish well (see drink to), especially:
   • 1842, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Vision of Sin”, in The Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1884, →OCLC, part iv, page 131:

     Drink to lofty hopes that cool —
     Visions of a perfect State : Drink we, last, the public fool,
     Frantic love and frantic hate.

   1. To express one's desire for the accomplishment of a toast, sentiment or event, to wish, hope (for), forward (especially as 'to drink the health (of someone)').
      • 1710, Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne:

        At the same time were great Acclamations & they drunk Damnation to D^r. Sacheverell, M^r Tilly, and all the D^rs friends.

      • 1712 December 30 (Gregorian calendar), [Richard Steele], “FRIDAY, December 19, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 433; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume V, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

        I ought not to have neglected a request of one of my correspondents so long as I have; but I dare say I have given him time to add practice to profession. He sent me some time ago a bottle or two of excellent wine to drink the health of a gentleman had by the penny post advertised him of an egregious error in his conduct. […]

        The spelling has been modernized.

   2. (obsolete, with carouse) [with to ‘someone or something’]
      • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene viii], pages 360-361, columns 2-1:

        Had our great Pall ace the capacity
        To Campe this hoſt, we all would ſup together,
        And drinke Carowſes to the next dayes Fate
        Which promiſes Royall perill, Trumpetters
        With brazen dinne blaſt you the Cittics eare,
        Make mingle with our ratling Tabourines,
        That heauen and earth may ſtrike their ſounds together,
        Applauding our approach.

7. (transitive, obsolete) To smoke, as tobacco.
   • 1630, John Taylor, A Proclomation or approbation from the King of execration, to euery nation, for Tobaccoes propogration:

     And some men now live ninety yeeres and past, / Who never dranke tobacco first nor last.

8. Used in phrasal verbs: drink down, drink in, drink off, drink out, drink to, drink up.

• drunken, drunk, dranken

• Belizean Creole: jrink
• Chinese Pidgin English: drinkee, dlinkee
• Sranan Tongo: dringi
  • Aukan: diingi
  • Saramaccan: diíngi
• Tok Pisin: dringim
• → Esperanto: drinki
• → Ido: drinkar

From Middle English drink, drinke (also as drinche, drunch), from Old English drynċ, from Proto-Germanic *drunkiz, *drankiz. Compare Dutch drank.

drink (countable and uncountable, plural drinks)

2. A beverage.

   I’d like another drink please.

3. (uncountable) Drinks in general; something to drink.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 25:35:

     For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink

4. A type of beverage (usually mixed).

   My favourite drink is the White Russian.

6. A (served) alcoholic beverage.

   Hypernym: beverage

   Can I buy you a drink?

7. The action of drinking, especially with the verbs take or have.

   He was about to take a drink from his root beer.

8. Alcoholic beverages in general.
   • 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court:

     She mixed furniture with the same fatal profligacy as she mixed drinks, and this outrageous contact between things which were intended by Nature to be kept poles apart gave her an inexpressible thrill.

   • 1979 February 10, Michael Bronski, “An American Dream”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 28, page 11:

     By the late twenties father has died of drink and his wife is left to raise their two sons.

   • 1995, “Daddy's on the Drink” (track 12), in Shame-Based Man‎^[1], performed by Bruce McCulloch:

     The face of work is a drunk man in the same chair, chewing on the same bone for five thousand nights. The face of work is a, coffee cup in hand, frustrated: "You don't get it. They all don't get it. You don't understand, man." Daddy's on the drink again.

   • 2014 November 14, Blake Bailey, “'Tennessee Williams,' by John Lahr [print version: Theatrical victory of art over life, International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 13]”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     […] she was indeed Amanda in the flesh: a doughty chatterbox from Ohio who adopted the manner of a Southern belle and eschewed both drink and sex to the greatest extent possible.

9. A standard drink.

   A drink of wine is about 5 ounces

   • 1963, Vital and Health Statistics: Programs and collection procedures, page 125:

     And when (SUBJECT) was 55, would you say (he/she) drank more than, less than, or about 2 to 3 drinks a day?

10. (colloquial, with the) Any body of water.

    If he doesn't pay off the mafia, he’ll wear cement shoes to the bottom of the drink!

    • 1996, John French+, A Drop in the Ocean: Dramatic Accounts of Aircrew Saved From the Sea, Pen and Sword, →ISBN, page 99:

      When in mid-Channel the speed slowed and I was informed by A.C. Russell that another dinghy had been spotted. This turned out to contain a Canadian fighter pilot who had been in the drink for three days and was in rather a bad way. He said he had seen all the aircraft flying over in the two days before D-Day and since, but no one had sighted him.

    • 2011, Levi Johnston, Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin's Crosshairs, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 34:

      In seconds, we went from sitting in a boat to threading ice-cold water. I wasn't wearing a life jacket and am not the best paddler, but there I was, in the drink, splashing around.

    • 2012, Jack R. Myers, Shot at and Missed: Recollections of a World War II Bombardier, University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, page 31:

      If the planes couldn't make it, they would go in the drink, eject their rubber lifeboats, inflate them, climb in, and pray for the Navy to pick them up before the Germans did.

11. (Australia, figurative) A downpour; a cloudburst; a rainstorm; a deluge; a lot of rain.
    • 2023 April 13, 07:56 am (UTC+10/AEST), in News Breakfast, season 2023, episode 74, spoken by Nate Byrne, Melbourne, Australia: ABC News:

      Now this is going to bring some huge totals of rainfall with it—200 to 400 millimetres with it—and along with that, these winds—gusts to 275 kilometres an hour near the cyclone [Cyclone Ilsa] core—and that's a real concern. That's very destructive winds and it's going to carry this inertia and the rain with it well inland. And we're likely going to be talking about a cyclone all the way through Friday as it slowly weakens, eventually washing that moisture out into a front going through the south. It means the southeast is getting a drink but W.A.'s northwest really copping it, individual totals significantly higher than what you're seeing here [on the weather map].

12. (informal) This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
    • 2004, Intelligent Systems, translated by Nintendo of America, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Nintendo, GameCube:

      He [a sea-serpent] was giant, massive. A huge drink of man-eater. But even now, you know, I could take him.

• A plainer term than more elevated term beverage. Beverage is of French origin, while drink is of Old English origin, and this stylistic difference by origin is common; see list of English words with dual French and Anglo-Saxon variations.
• In the sense of any body of water the term is often associated with (a threat of) drowning.

• (served beverage): beverage, see also Thesaurus:beverage
• (served alcoholic beverage): beverage, see also Thesaurus:alcoholic beverage
• (action of drinking): gulp, sip, swig
• (type of beverage): beverage
• (alcoholic beverages in general): alcohol

From Dutch drinken, from Middle Dutch drinken, from Old Dutch drinkan, from Proto-Germanic *drinkaną.

• Audio:

  (file)

drink (present drink, present participle drinkende, past participle gedrink)

1. to drink

Borrowed from English drink.

• IPA^(key): [ˈdrɪŋk]

drink m inan

1. drink (a (mixed) alcoholic beverage)

• “drink”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “drink”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

From English drink.

drink c (singular definite drinken, plural indefinite drinks)

1. drink; a (mixed) alcoholic beverage

• sjus c

• “drink” in Den Danske Ordbog

• IPA^(key): /drɪŋk/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: drink
• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

Borrowed from English drink.

drink m (plural drinks)

1. (Belgium) a social event were beverages are served, with or without snacks, e.g. as a celebration
2. (Netherlands) a beverage, a drink

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

drink

1. inflection of drinken:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

Borrowed from English drink.

• IPA^(key): /dʁiŋk/

• Audio:

  (file)

drink m (plural drinks)

1. a reception or afterparty where alcohol is served

• “drink”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Unadapted borrowing from English drink.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdrink/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ink
• Hyphenation: drìnk

drink m (usually invariable, plural (dated) drinks)

1. drink (served beverage and mixed beverage)

   Synonym: bevanda

   • 1970, “Ⅻ”, in Mercedes Giardini, transl., Il padrino, Milan: dall'Oglio editore, translation of The Godfather by Mario Puzo, page 160:

     «Non sono in forma con la voce», rispose. «E con tutta sincerità, sono stufo di sentirmi cantare». Sorseggiarono i drinks.

     "My voice is not doing well", he replied. "And, in all honesty, I'm tired of hearing myself singing". They sipped their drinks.

   • 2013, Paolo Sorrentino, 01:39:42 from the start, in La grande bellezza, spoken by Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo):

     Io berrò molti drink, ma non così tanti da diventare molesto.

     I'll drink many drinks, but not so many to become annoying.

• drink in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

drink

1. first-person singular of drinken

• drank (Föhr-Amrum)
• drainke (Mooring)

From Old Frisian drinka, from Proto-West Germanic *drinkan.

• (Sylt) IPA^(key): [d̥rɪŋk]

drink (present)

1. (Sylt, Heligoland) to drink

Borrowed from English drink. Doublet of dręk and trunek.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdriŋk/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iŋk
• Syllabification: drink

drink m animal

1. cocktail, drink (served alcoholic beverage)
   • 2011, “Kawałek do tańca”, performed by Poparzeni Kawą Trzy:

     Jeszcze trochę do północy
     drink jak zagubiony pocisk
     strzelił mocno mi do głowy
     coraz trudniej się wysłowić.

     There's still some time before midnight
     The drink, like a lost bullet,
     shot me right in the head
     it's getting harder and harder to speak.

• drink in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• drink in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Unadapted borrowing from English drink.

drink m (plural drinks)

1. alternative form of drinque

From English drink. Doublet of dryck.

• IPA^(key): /drɪŋk/

• Audio (Gotland):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

drink c

1. a drink ((mixed) alcoholic beverage)

   ta en drink

   enjoy a drink

Drink in the more general sense of beverage is dryck.

• dryck
• grogg
• sup

• drink in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• drink in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• drink in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

From Middle English drinken, from Old English drincan, from Proto-West Germanic *drinkan.

• IPA^(key): /drɪŋk/

drink

1. to drink
   • 1867, “THE WEDDEEN O BALLYMORE”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 4, page 96:

     Drink a heall to a breede. "Shud with, a voorneen."

     Drink a health to the bride, "Here's to you, my dear."

drink

1. drink
   • 1867, “VERSES IN ANSWER TO THE WEDDEEN O BALLYMORE”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, page 98:

     Tibbès an crockès wee drink war ee-felt.

     [Tubs and crocks were filled with drink.]

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 96