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drunkard

American  
[druhng-kerd] / ˈdrʌŋ kərd /

noun

Disparaging and Offensive.
  • drunkards
    plural
  1. a habitual drinker of alcohol who is frequently intoxicated.

    Synonyms:
    tippler, sot, lush
    Antonyms:
    teetotaler

drunkard British  
/ ˈdrʌŋkəd /

noun

  1. a person who is frequently or habitually drunk

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Synonym Usage

See inebriate.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of drunkard

First recorded in 1520–40; see origin at drunk, -ard


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

As the stock market alternatively displays the grace of a boxer and the oafishness of a drunkard, investors are once more confronting that which they fear most: volatility.

From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026

All to communicate that this was a vigorous, healthy man of action, not an ailing drunkard.

From BBC ● May 30, 2026

With imaginative sympathy Tolstoy becomes a general in battle, a young girl at her first ball, a disillusioned prince, a drunkard, a lover—often amid a backdrop “laden with snow.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025

Franklin Pierce, although a Northerner, fiercely defended slavery while signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act; he was a drunkard to boot.

From Salon ● Jul. 26, 2025

Instead of a bumbling drunkard there now stood in the path of the mob a giant man.

From "Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya

Ms. Adelman describes how Lewis’s specimens fell into the hands of a series of botanists—some of them charlatans, drunkards, liars or thieves—who squandered his legacy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026

Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative, pushed back saying that even early American presidents might have qualified as "habitual drunkards" by the standards of today.

From Barron's ● Mar. 2, 2026

In our search for cosmic signals of dark matter, we could be likened to drunkards looking for lost keys beneath lampposts, where the light shines the brightest.

From Scientific American ● Jun. 8, 2022

Yet in “Night World,” Mae Clarke, who plays a dancer with a knack for nursing drunkards back to health, cuts through the hedonism and anarchy with her grounded intelligence and low-key charm.

From New York Times ● Feb. 1, 2022

The hour of the owl, the hour of the wolf, the hour of the nightingale, moonrise and moonset, dusk and dawn, they staggered past like drunkards.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

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