Learning English isn’t easy. It’s a complicated, sometimes almost incomprehensible language with rules that rarely seem to make any sense. In fact, it sometimes seems that English was made up by people who were drunk.

Which brings me to the subject of today’s blog. The English language is filled with colorful words and phrases for the act of being drunk. You might conclude that we native speakers spend a great deal of time thinking about the subject – and you would be absolutely correct! Warning: Not all of these terms are considered polite, so you are advised to consider carefully before sharing them with others. Of course, after a few drinks, who’s going to care?

Words

Bashed

Blasted

Blitzed

Blotto

Buzzed

Cabbaged

Canned

Clobbered

Crapulent

Crocked

Decimated

Fecked

Flushed

Flying

Gassed

Gone

Gonzo

Half-cocked

Half-cut

Hammered

Inebriated

Intoxicated

Kippered

Legless

Lit

Loaded

Looped

Lubricated

Lush

Merry

Muckibus

Newcastled

Ossified

Paralytic

Pickled

Pie-eyed

Pissed

Plastered

Plowed

Potted

Primed

Rat-legged

Razzled

Rubbered

Ruined

Sauced

Shit-faced

Slammed

Sloshed

Smashed

Spiffed

Steaming

Stewed

Tanked

Tight

Tipsy

Tits-up

Tosspot

Totaled

Trashed

Trousered

Tub-thumping

Wall-eyed

Wasted

Wrecked

Zombied

 

Idioms

Ass over teakettle

Away with the fairies

Chemically inconvenienced

Comfortably numb

Drunk as a lord

Drunk as a skunk

Examining the footpath

Feeling no pain

Full of bug juice

Got my beer goggles on

Had a snoot full

Had one too many

Half in the bag

Higher than a kite

In his (her) cups

In the bag

Jober as a sudge

Lit like a Christmas tree

Nicely irrigated with horizontal lubricant

Off my pickle

Off my trolley

On a bender

One foot on the floor

Pissed up

Rubber legged

So wet he ripples

Three sheets to the wind

Under full sail

Under the influence

This, of course, is a partial list. The BBC claims that there are 3000 words in the English language for being drunk. If you have any favorite terms, please share them with us! In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the immortal words of entertainer, and famous drinker, Dean Martin.

“You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.”