drunkenness Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a temporary state resulting from excessive consumption of alcohol
    tipsiness; insobriety; inebriety; inebriation; intoxication.
  2. noun habitual intoxication; prolonged and excessive intake of alcoholic drinks leading to a breakdown in health and an addiction to alcohol such that abrupt deprivation leads to severe withdrawal symptoms
    inebriation; alcoholism; alcohol addiction.
  3. noun the act of drinking alcoholic beverages to excess
    crapulence; drinking; drink; boozing.
    • drink was his downfall

WordNet


Drunk"en*ness noun
Definitions
  1. The state of being drunken with, or as with, alcoholic liquor; intoxication; inebriety; -- used of the casual state or the habit.
    The Lacedemonians trained up their children to hate drunkenness by bringing a drunken man into their company. I. Watts.
  2. Disorder of the faculties, resembling intoxication by liquors; inflammation; frenzy; rage.
    Passion is the drunkenness of the mind. South.
    Syn. -- Intoxication; inebriation; inebriety. -- Drunkenness, Intoxication, Inebriation. Drunkenness refers more to the habit; intoxication and inebriation, to specific acts. The first two words are extensively used in a figurative sense; a person is intoxicated with success, and is drunk with joy. "This plan of empire was not taken up in the first intoxication of unexpected success." Burke.

Webster 1913