bibulous

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin bibulus (“drinking freely or readily; absorbent”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} with the ending -ous.^[2][7] The Latin adjective, recorded from Lucretius on, is from bibō (“to drink”),^[8][3][2] which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *po(i)- (“to drink”),^[3][5] in de Vaan's notation the reduplicated present *pi-ph₃-e/o-,^[8] and is cognate with Old Irish ibid (“to drink”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Absorbent of moisture: 1676, in J. Evelyn's Philosophical Discourse of Earth.^[2][9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1675 for the same sense,^[4] and Dictionary.com 1665–75.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word already applied both to people, "given to drink", and to things, "absorbent; moistened".^[3] English took the sense for things first:^[2] Johnson (1755) knew only that one, defining the word as having the quality of drinking moisture, "spungy", with a quotation from Thomson about sands.^[11] A sense "relating to drink" followed in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1825,^[2] and "immoderately fond of drinking alcohol" in G. W. Thornbury's life of Turner in 1861,^[2][3] which is now the usual meaning: Collins gives no other.^[12]

Timeline

• 1676 – absorbent of moisture.^[2][4]
• 1825 – relating to drink.^[2][13]
• 1861 – immoderately fond of alcoholic drink.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Fond of alcoholic drink, especially to excess: a bibulous uncle who seldom left the pub.^[12][4][2]
2. Readily taking up liquid; absorbent, spongy: a sheet of bibulous filter paper.^[4][2][11]
3. Relating to drink or drinking.^[2][13]

Word family

• bibulously
• bibulousness
• bibulosity

Related words

• imbibe
• potable
• beverage

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press