usquebaugh
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Irish uisce beatha (“water of life”), Scottish Gaelic uisge beatha (“water of life”).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
usquebaugh (countable and uncountable, plural usquebaughs)
- whisky, whiskey
- 1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, chapter 8:
- What does my noble captain drink -- is it brandy, rum, usquebaugh?
- 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
- You’re darned witty. Three drams of usquebaugh you drank with Dan Deasy’s ducats.
- 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 70:
- ‘Get some blankets round him, Shem. And hand me the usquebaugh.’
- 1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford:
- Kit coughed over a noggin of usquebaugh.
Yola edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Irish uisce beatha.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
usquebaugh
- Irish whiskey
- 1867, “THE WEDDEEN O BALLYMORE”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 3, page 94:
- An gooude usquebaugh ee-sarith uth in cooanès.
- And good whiskey served out in wooden cans.
References edit
- Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 74