Hiberno-English words for drinking too much
I was looking up a word–”divil”–from the Planxty song “As I Roved Out” (from “devil”, it’s a negation word, so that “divil a one could hear us” means “no one could hear us”), and Wikipedia redirected me to an entry on Hiberno-English with a lovely section on words for drinking too much:
There are many terms for having consumed a drop too much drink, many are used elsewhere, but the Irish tendency is to attempt to find the most descriptive adjective yet on each occasion. Some examples: “loaded”, “blocked”, “twisted”, “full” (common in Ulster), “as full as a Gypsy’s tit”, “spannered”, “Spangled”, “scuttered”, “menashed”, “stocious/stotious”, “bananas”, “baloobas” (common in Cavan), “locked”, “langered”, “mouldy” (pron. mowldy as in “fowl”; used in Galway esp.), “polluted”, “flootered”, “plastered”, “bolloxed”, “banjaxed”, “well out of it”, “wankered”, “fucked”, “fuckered”,”paraplegic” (common in Kilkenny), “ossified”, “binned”, “rat-arsed”, “gee-eyed”, “demented”, “flahed drunk”, “langers altogether”, “in shit drunk” (common in Cork), “buckled”, “steaming” (common in Donegal), “messy”, “rotten”, “out of me tree” (common in Limerick) “off me head altogether”, “off my face”, “sloppy”, “cabbaged”, “wasted”, “paralytic/palatic”, “full as a boot”, “full up”, “full as the bingo bus” (common in Louth), “legless”, “hammered”, “circling over Shannon”, “blootered”, “squooshed”, “banjoed”, “mullered”, “bingoed”, “mangled”, “ruined”, “landed”, “cant even see my hand in front of my face” “half-tore”,”lubed” (Common in Ballincollig), “oiled”, “jarred” (not too drunk, “I’m not drunk, I’m just a bit jarred!”), “scorched”, “in the horrors”, (common in Waterford), “in the rats”, “in the livin’ rats”, “in the livin’ fuckin’ rats” (common in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford), “stoned” (Louth/South Monaghan only), “I’m off my tits”, “binned”, “pissed”, “cut and half cut”, “flamin’” (common in Kerry), “sozzled”, “blottoed”, “trolleyed”, “sloshed”, “wrecked”, “rancid”, “goosed”, “off my game”, “off my trolley”, “gimped”, “destroyed”, “wrote”, “wrote off”, “guitaroed” ‘”I wasn’t banjoed I was guitaroed”‘, “steamed” (common in Mayo), “off my chops” (common in Clonakilty), “sauced” (Fermanagh) “transmoglified”, “I was off me shoe”/ “I fell off my shoe”, “smashed”, “so drunk he couldn’t spell his own face”. (Phrases in italics are more “colourful”)
