Drunken
adj, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 past participle of drink archaic, form-of, participle, past
- 2 To make or become drunk or drunken; to intoxicate. ambitransitive
"Yea, upon a stoned couch and drunkened unto death upon the bittered draught of Rome!"
- 1 Drunk, in the state of intoxication after having drunk an alcoholic beverage.
"What shall we do with a drunken sailor? […] / Put him in the longboat and make him bail her / Early in the morning."
- 2 Given to habitual excessive use of alcohol. derogatory
- 3 Characterized by or resulting from drunkenness.
"a drunken display of crude exuberance"
- 4 Saturated with liquid obsolete
- 5 Saturated with liquid; Applied to various spicy stir-fried dishes in Asian cuisine. obsolete
"drunken noodles; drunken duck; drunken fried rice"
- 1 given to or marked by the consumption of alcohol wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The drunken man awoke to find himself in prison."
Etymology
From Middle English drunken, ydronken, idrunken, from Old English druncen, ġedruncen (“drunk; drunken”), from Proto-Germanic *drunkanaz (“drunken”), past participle of Proto-Germanic *drinkaną (“to drink”), equivalent to drink + -en. Cognate with West Frisian dronken (“drunk; drunken”), Dutch dronken (“drunk; drunken”), German betrunken (“drunk; drunken”), Swedish drucken (“drunk; drunken”).
From Middle English dronknen, drunkenen, drunknen, from Old English druncnian (“to drown; get drunk”), from Proto-Germanic *drunkanōną (“to get drunk”), from Proto-Germanic *drunkanaz (“drunk; intoxicated”). Cognate with Norwegian drukne, drukna, Icelandic drukna.
Related phrases
More for "drunken"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.