drunken

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English drunken,^[2][3] inherited from Old English druncen (“drunk, intoxicated”),^[3][2][4] the past participle of drincan (“to drink”),^[3][5][6][4] from Proto-Germanic *drunkanaz.^[7] It is cognate with Old Saxon drunkan, Old High German trunkan and Old Norse drukkinn, which had the same active sense of having drunk.^[8][7] The Scots and northern form drucken is from Norse; compare Icelandic drukkinn.^[5][9] The shorter drunk is a clipped form of drunken, recorded from the 14th century,^[8][3] and Etymonline calls drunken the full form of the past participle of drink.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Overcome by liquor, intoxicated: Old English, in the Liber Scintillarum,^[5] and in the Old English Genesis (9:21).^[4]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old English the word served as the adjective for intoxication.^[10][5] R. Rolle used it figuratively before 1340,^[5] and it appears in proverbs and set phrases from about 1400.^[5] From about 1420 it could describe things soaked or saturated with liquid, a sense now rare or obsolete.^[5][9][10] The sense "habitually given to drink" dates from 1548; the OED, writing in 1897, called it the more common current sense.^[5][10] From 1591 it was applied to actions caused by drunkenness,^[5] and since 1786 figuratively to things that are uneven or reel off course.^[5][10] Middle English also had drunc-wile and drunkensome for someone habitually drunk.^[10][9] Johnson (1755) defined it as "intoxicated with liquor; inebriated", quoting Shakespeare.^[11] English dialects used it in plant names, such as drunken plant for darnel and drunken elm for the wych elm.^[12]

Timeline

• Old English – intoxicated (druncen).^[5][4]
• before 1340 – used figuratively.^[5]
• c. 1400 – in proverbs and set phrases.^[5]
• c. 1420 – of things, soaked or saturated.^[5][10]
• 1548 – habitually given to drink.^[5][10]
• 1591 – of actions, caused by drunkenness.^[5]
• 1786 – of things, uneven, unsteady.^[5][10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Drunk; intoxicated with alcohol, or as if with it.^[13][3][5]
2. Often or habitually drunk: a drunken old sailor.^[13][3][5]
3. Caused by, marked by or relating to drunkenness: a drunken quarrel.^[13][3][5]
4. Of a thing, uneven or unsteady; reeling or off the vertical.^[5][9]
5. (obsolete) Soaked or saturated with liquid.^[3][9][5]

Word family

• drunkenly
• drunkenness
• undrunken

Related words

• drink
• drunk
• drunkard

Usage notes

In standard English drunk is now used almost only after a verb, while drunken usually comes before a noun;^[5][9] the American Heritage Dictionary likewise notes that drunk is generally used after verbs such as be or seem.^[14] In Scots and northern dialect drunk is still used before a noun.^[5] Dictionary.com notes that both forms can stand before nouns that name people.^[15]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House