carousal

Etymology

It is formed from English carouse + -al,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} and the OED adds that a misunderstanding of carousel, associated with the verb, may have helped the formation.^[2] The verb, recorded from the 1550s, is from French carousser (“to drink, quaff, swill”),^[3][2] from German gar aus (“quite out, all out”), in the phrase gar austrinken (“to drink up entirely”).^[3][2] The earlier noun was simply carouse, also from the 1550s.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A noisy drinking bout: Etymonline dates it to 1735^[3] and the Shorter Oxford to the early 18th century,^[4] while the OED's first quotation is from 1765, in Sterne's Tristram Shandy.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word was mixed up with carousel, a pageant with chariot racing or tilting: Johnson (1755) derives it from the verb but defines it as a festival, and quotes Dryden's Virgil,^[8] and Skeat and Weekley point out that this use is really the French word.^[9][10] Modern dictionaries give the sense of a merry drinking party.^[11][2]

Timeline

• 1735 – a noisy drinking bout.^[3] The OED has it from 1765,^[2] and the Random House text from 1755–65.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A noisy, merry drinking party; a bout of carousing: The students' carousal lasted until dawn.^[11][4][2]
2. Revelry with heavy drinking.^[2][7]

Related words

• carouse
• carousel

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged also lists carousal as a separate spelling of carousel, altered by folk etymology under the influence of carouse,^[7] and the 1989 edition of the OED calls that use an error.^[12] Skeat and Weekley attribute it to old authors and historical writers.^[9][10] Johnson thought the word better accented on the second syllable, though Dryden accents the first.^[8]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ 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.
9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press