drunkard

Etymology

The OED and Merriam-Webster take it as formed from English drunk + -ard,^[2][3][4] and Barnhart and Etymonline form it from the Middle English participial adjective dronken with the same suffix.^[5][6] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English instead derive it, Hoad and the Shorter Oxford as probable, from Middle Low German drunkert, from drunken, and compare Middle Dutch dronker and Dutch dronkaard,^[7][8][9] the last being the source of early modern French dronquart.^[8] Skeat analysed it as the stem of the Old English drincan (“to drink”) participle with a French suffix.^[10] The adjective goes back to druncen, the past participle of drincan,^[11][7] and the suffix -ard comes from Old French -ard, which was often pejorative in common nouns,^[7][6] as in bastard and coward.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a surname, Druncard: 1275 in Barnhart,^[5] and the late 13th century in Etymonline, which names one Mauricius Druncard.^[6] As a common noun, a habitual drinker, the OED's first record is 1530, in Palsgrave,^[2] and Etymonline dates droncarde to the 1520s.^[6] Several dictionaries date the common noun earlier: Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com to the 15th century, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English to Middle English.^[3][4][8][9]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed close to its first record, a person habitually or excessively given to drink.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as someone given to excessive use of strong liquors and quoted Shakespeare and South's sermons.^[12] Dictionary.com distinguishes it from inebriate, a slightly more formal word, and says that drunkard suggests deliberate excess.^[4] In Northumberland, a drunkard's cloak was a tub with holes for the head and arms, in which offenders were led through the streets of Newcastle, as described in 1655.^[13] The word was also applied to plants: the marsh marigold, a name recorded from 1886 in Britten and Holland's plant names and in Wiltshire dialect,^[2][13] and, in the plural in New England, the checkerberry.^[3]

Timeline

• 1275 – as a surname, Druncard.^[5]
• 1530 – a person who is habitually drunk.^[2]
• 1886 – a local name of the marsh marigold.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who is habitually or frequently drunk; an alcoholic.^[14][15][3]
2. (local) The marsh marigold.^[2][8][13]
3. (New England, in the plural) The checkerberry.^[3]

Related words

• drunk
• drunken
• drink

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
15. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins