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You are here: Home / Language / Where Did the Term “Lush” For an Alcoholic Come From and What Does the Word Mean?

Where Did the Term “Lush” For an Alcoholic Come From and What Does the Word Mean?

February 13, 2020 by Karen Hill

In eighteenth-century London there was an actors’ drinking club called The City of Lushington.

The club may have taken its name from Dr. Thomas Lushington, a prominent drinker from the seventeenth century whose descendants became brewers of fine ale.

Lush, the abbreviation of Lushington, became a common slang reference for beer in early England.

It later crossed the ocean, where in America the term lush became a reference to a heavy drinker.

Someone with a drinking problem is often called a “lush”.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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