drunk
Americanadjective
-
drunker,
comparative
-
drunkest
superlative
-
being in a temporary state in which one's physical and mental faculties are impaired by an excess of alcohol; intoxicated.
The wine made him drunk.
- Synonyms:
- inebriated, drunken
- Antonyms:
- sober
-
overcome or dominated by a strong feeling or emotion.
drunk with power;
drunk with joy.
-
pertaining to or caused by intoxication or intoxicated persons; drunken.
The semester before I dropped out was just a blur of drunk hookups and missed classes.
noun
-
drunks
plural
-
an intoxicated person.
A couple of rude, grabby drunks ruined the parade for her.
-
Disparaging and Offensive. a habitual drinker of alcohol who is frequently intoxicated.
-
a spree; drinking party.
We rolled back into town after a four-day drunk, looking like hell.
verb
adjective
-
intoxicated with alcohol to the extent of losing control over normal physical and mental functions
-
overwhelmed by strong influence or emotion
drunk with joy
noun
-
a person who is drunk or drinks habitually to excess
-
informal a drinking bout
Usage
See drink ( def. ).
Commonly Confused
Both drunk and drunken are used as modifiers before nouns naming persons: a drunk customer; a drunken merrymaker. Only drunk occurs after a linking verb: He was not drunk, just jovial. The actor was drunk with success. The modifier drunk in legal language describes a person whose blood contains more than the legally allowed percentage of alcohol: Drunk drivers go to jail. Drunken, not drunk, is almost always the form used with nouns that do not name persons: drunken arrogance; a drunken free-for-all. In such uses it normally has the sense “pertaining to, caused by, or marked by intoxication.” Drunken is also idiomatic in such expressions as drunken bum or drunken sailor.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of drunk
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English drunken, Old English druncen, past participle of drincan “to swallow liquid, drink”; see origin at drink
Explanation
If you consume so much alcohol that you become inebriated, you are drunk. If you do it too often, you may become a drunk, which is another, blunter, word for "alcoholic." For the last 600 years or so, the word drunk has been used to describe someone who is intoxicated. Someone who's drunk from alcohol might be unsteady on their feet, slur their speech, or not be able to think straight. But you also can be drunk on things like power, passion or hope. This kind of drunk involves strong feelings or intoxicating emotions instead of one too many beers.
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:
“Do we hold bars responsible for the things drunk people do on public sidewalks?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
Testing by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation showed that two people had drunk from the bottle, leaving a mixture of their DNA.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, your second cousin who gets too drunk at every family wedding has seen it.
From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2026
Raw and fermented milk is more widely drunk in rural areas.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
Papa laughed and said, “To me it looks like that Jimbo monkey wanted to get you and Rowdy drunk so he could steal your britches. What do you suppose he did with them?”
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
But nearby police officers who weren’t part of the production thought they were just two drunks having fun and yelled at them to get down.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
The tertulias at Alemana became the space where artists, journalists, and drunks overlapped freely.
From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2026
Otto von Bismarck’s special providence for “fools, drunks, and the United States of America” may be coming to the aid of the current incumbent.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
"Both my daughters are young doctors and they tell me that hospital campuses are overrun by anti-social elements, drunks and touts," she says.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2024
Big Bol was a bouncer at the Crow Club, perfectly suited to tossing out drunks and wasters, but too heavy on his feet to be much use when it came to a real tussle.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
The pool women involved themselves, displaying a remarkable capacity to seem drunker in a crisis, despite the fact that they weren’t drinking, as if drawing on unseen reserves.
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 25, 2019
“The Golden Globes are to the Oscars what Kim Kardashian is to Kate Middleton. Bit louder, bit trashier, bit drunker, and more easily bought.”
From The Guardian ● Jan. 7, 2018
Ravick had been in power too long, and he was drunker on it than Bish Ware ever got on Baldur honey-rum.
From Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper
But in times such as these, an awards broadcast can serve some purpose beyond distraction — even a show whose claim to fame is catching celebrities at their drunkest and loosest.
From Salon ● Jan. 6, 2020
O villain! thy lips ate scarce wiped since thou drunkest last.
From McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader by William Holmes McGuffey
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
