drink
English
Alternative forms
- drinck (obsolete)
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle English drynken, from Old English drincan (“to drink, swallow up, engulf”), from Proto-Germanic *drinkaną (“to drink”), of uncertain origin; possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrenǵ- (“to draw into one's mouth, sip, gulp”), nasalised variant of *dʰreǵ- (“to draw, glide”). Cognate with West Frisian drinke (“to drink”), Low German drinken (“to drink”), Dutch drinken (“to drink”), German trinken (“to drink”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål drikke (“to drink”), Norwegian Nynorsk drikka (“to drink”).
Verb
drink (third-person singular simple present drinks, present participle drinking, simple past drank or (southern US) drunk or (nonstandard) drinked, past participle drunk or (informal) drank or (nonstandard) drinked or (obsolete or nonstandard) drunken)
- (transitive, intransitive) To consume (a liquid) through the mouth.
- He drank the water I gave him.
- You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
- 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Nouember. Aegloga Vndecima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: Printed by Hugh Singleton, […], OCLC 606515406; republished as The Shepheardes Calender, […], imprinted at London: By Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, […], 1586, OCLC 837880809, folio 47, recto:
- […] There liues ſhee with the bleſſed Gods in bliſſe: / There drinks the Nectar with Ambroſia mixt […]
- c. 1859, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians, volume 1, page 341:
- It was he who proposed the bowl of punch, which was brewed and drunk in Mrs. Betty’s room, and which Gumbo concocted with exquisite skill.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 2, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
- That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired.
- (transitive, metonymically) To consume the liquid contained within (a bottle, glass, etc.).
- Jack drank the whole bottle by himself.
- (intransitive) To consume alcoholic beverages.
- You've been drinking, haven't you?
- No thanks, I don't drink.
- Everyone who is drinking is drinking, but not everyone who is drinking is drinking.
- (Can we date this quote?) Thackeray
- Bolingbroke always spoke freely when he had drunk freely.
- (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare
- I drink to the general joy of the whole table, / And to our dear friend Banquo.
- (transitive) To take in (a liquid), in any manner; to suck up; to absorb; to imbibe.
- (Can we date this quote?) Dryden
- Let the purple violets drink the stream.
- (Can we date this quote?) Dryden
- (transitive) To take in; to receive within one, through the senses; to inhale; to hear; to see.
- (Can we date this quote?) Tennyson
- to drink the cooler air
- (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare
- My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words / Of that tongue's utterance.
- (Can we date this quote?) Alexander Pope
- Let me […] drink delicious poison from thy eye.
- (Can we date this quote?) Tennyson
- (transitive, obsolete) To smoke, as tobacco.
- (Can we date this quote?) Taylor
- And some men now live ninety years and past, / Who never drank tobacco first nor last.
- (Can we date this quote?) Taylor
Synonyms
- (consume (liquid) through the mouth): gulp, imbibe, quaff, sip, see also Thesaurus:drink
- (consume alcoholic beverages): drink alcohol, hit the sauce
Derived terms
Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
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Etymology 2
From Old English drync, from Proto-Germanic *drunkiz, *drankiz. Compare Dutch drank.
Noun
drink (countable and uncountable, plural drinks)
- A beverage.
- I’d like another drink please.
- A (served) alcoholic beverage.
- Can I buy you a drink?
- The action of drinking, especially with the verbs take or have.
- He was about to take a drink from his root beer.
- A type of beverage (usually mixed).
- My favourite drink is the White Russian.
- Alcoholic beverages in general.
- 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 1, in Death on the Centre Court:
- She mixed furniture with the same fatal profligacy as she mixed drinks, and this outrageous contact between things which were intended by Nature to be kept poles apart gave her an inexpressible thrill.
- 2014 November 14, Blake Bailey, “'Tennessee Williams,' by John Lahr [print version: Theatrical victory of art over life, International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 13]”, in The New York Times:
- […] she was indeed Amanda in the flesh: a doughty chatterbox from Ohio who adopted the manner of a Southern belle and eschewed both drink and sex to the greatest extent possible.
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- (colloquial, with the) Any body of water.
- If he doesn't pay off the mafia, he’ll wear cement shoes to the bottom of the drink!
- (uncountable, archaic) Drinks in general; something to drink
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981:, Matthew 25:35:
- For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink
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Usage notes
- A plainer term than more elevated term beverage. Beverage is of French origin, while drink is of Old English origin, and this stylistic difference by origin is common; see list of English words with dual French and Anglo-Saxon variations.
Synonyms
- (served beverage): beverage, see also Thesaurus:beverage
- (served alcoholic beverage): beverage, see also Thesaurus:alcoholic beverage
- (action of drinking): gulp, sip, swig
- (type of beverage): beverage
- (alcoholic beverages in general): alcohol
Derived terms
- the big drink
- drink-driver
- drink-driving
- drive to drink
- in the drink
- straw that stirs the drink
- take to drink
Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Afrikaans
Etymology
From Dutch drinken, from Middle Dutch drinken, from Old Dutch drinkan, from Proto-Germanic *drinkaną.
Czech
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [ˈdrɪŋk]
Declension
Danish
Noun
drink c (singular definite drinken, plural indefinite drinks)
- drink; a (mixed) alcoholic beverage
Inflection
Synonyms
- sjus c
Dutch
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /drɪŋk/
Audio (file) - Rhymes: -ɪŋk
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /dʁiŋk/
Further reading
- “drink” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Italian
Noun
drink m (invariable)
- drink (served beverage and mixed beverage)
- Synonym: bevanda
- 2013, Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella, La grande bellezza, written by Paolo Sorrentino, 01:39:42 from the start:
- Io berrò molti drink, ma non così tanti da diventare molesto.
- I'll drink many drinks, but not so many to become annoying.
Low German
Swedish
Pronunciation
audio (file)
Declension
Declension of drink | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | |||
Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
Nominative | drink | drinken | drinkar | drinkarna |
Genitive | drinks | drinkens | drinkars | drinkarnas |
Related terms
- drinkare