Etymologically
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drunken

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈdɹʌŋkən/[1]

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

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