drinker

English edit

From Middle English drinkere, drynkere, from Old English drincere (“drinker”), from Proto-Germanic *drinkārijaz (“drinker”), equivalent to drink +‎ -er. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Drinker (“drinker”), West Frisian drinker (“drinker”), Dutch drinker (“drinker”), German Low German Drinker (“drinker”), German Trinker (“drinker”), Danish drikker (“drinker”), Swedish drickare, drinkare (“drinker”).

drinker (plural drinkers)

Agent noun of drink; someone or something that drinks.
Someone who drinks alcoholic beverages on a regular basis.
a heavy drinker^{[note 1]}
- 1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 280:
  At a single table a couple of Chinese drinkers looked up incuriously.
A device from which animals can drink.
a bell drinker

a nipple drinker
(slang) A pub.
- 2011, Tony Black, Gutted, page 88:
  Antisocial behaviour? What the hell was that? In my day antisocial meant staying in to watch the footy on Scotsport instead of going down the drinker.

(antonym(s) of "drunkard"): teetotaler, nondrinker; See also Thesaurus:teetotaler

one that drinks

regular drinker of alcohol

Azerbaijani: içkiçi, içici
Belarusian: п'я́ніца m or f (pʺjánica)
Breton: ever (br) m, lonker (br) m
Bulgarian: пия́ница (bg) m (pijánica)
Catalan: bevedor m, bevedora f
Chinese:
Mandarin: 酒徒 (zh) (jiǔtú), 酒鬼 (zh) (jiǔguǐ), 醉鬼 (zh) (zuìguǐ), 酒客 (zh) (jiǔkè)
Czech: pijan (cs) m
French: buveur (fr) m, buveuse (fr) f
German: Trinker (de) m, Trinkerin (de) f, Gewohnheitstrinker (de) m, Gewohnheitstrinkerin (de) f
Greek: πότης (el) m (pótis)
Ancient: πότης m (pótēs)
Hebrew: שתיין m (shatyan), שתיינית f (shatianyt)
Indonesian: peminum (id)
Japanese: 酒飲み (さけのみ, sakenomi), 酒好き (ja) (さけずき, sakezuki)
Manx: iuder m
Norman: béveux m, b'veux m
Portuguese: bebedor m, bebedora f
Russian: пья́ница (ru) m or f (pʹjánica), пью́щий (ru) m (pʹjúščij), пью́щая (ru) f (pʹjúščaja)
Spanish: bebedor (es) m, bebedora (es) f
Telugu: త్రాగుబోతు (trāgubōtu)
Turkish: içici (tr)
Ukrainian: п'я́ниця m or f (pʺjánycja)
Yoruba: ọ̀mùtí

a device

^ Michael Stubbs (2014) “Semantics”, in Constant Leung, Brian V[incent] Street, editors, The Routledge Companion to English Studies, London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, part II (English in studies of language), page 222: “And note that a heavy drinker is not necessarily overweight. You have to know that its structure is [heavy-drink]er.”