Bedrink

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To drink in; drink up; drink to the fullest ambitransitive, archaic

    "[...] not far from Tophana — the place of cannons — and doth there foolishly, selfishly, and sottishly bedrink himself unroyally drunk with bottle after bottle of champagne, [...]"

  2. 2
    to get drunk archaic, reflexive

    "That "moreover it behooveth to scourge all such heretics as would have it that these herein-afore-mentioned swineherds had bedrunk themselves and did cunningly adduce this tale of witchery to the end that they might escape meet [...]""

Example

More examples

"[...] not far from Tophana — the place of cannons — and doth there foolishly, selfishly, and sottishly bedrink himself unroyally drunk with bottle after bottle of champagne, [...]"

Etymology

From Middle English *bedrinken, from Old English bedrincan (“to drink in, drink up, absorb”), from Proto-West Germanic *bidrinkan; conflated with Middle English bidrenchen (“to soak up, steep”) (attested in Middle English bidrenkt (“soaked, drenched”)), from Old English *bedrenċan (“to drench completely”), equivalent to be- + drink and be- + drench. Cognate with Dutch bedrinken (“to drink up, get drunk”), German betrinken (“to get drunk”).

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.