in one's cups

English

Adjective

in one’s cups

1. (idiomatic) Drunk; in the act of consuming alcohol liberally.
   • 1809, Washington Irving, Knickerbocker's History of New York, ch. 6:

     [T]he natives were an honest, social race of jolly roysterers, who had no objection to a drinking bout, and were very merry in their cups.

   • 1852, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance, ch. 21:

     They grew only the more sober in their cups; there was no confused babble nor boisterous laughter. They sucked in the joyous fire of the decanters and kept it smouldering in their inmost recesses.

   • 1906, E. W. Hornung, The Shadow of the Rope, ch. 1:

     [H]ere he gambled, there he drank; and in his cups every virtue dissolved.

   • 2006, Margaret Hawkins, "Home Alone: Blackmon photos find solitude among domestic chaos," Chicago Sun-Times, 17 Nov., p. NC50:

     The woman on the other hand is in her cups swigging from one wine glass while another stands at her elbow.

Synonyms

• See Wikisaurus:drunk