DRUNKENNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does drunkenness mean? 

• DRUNKENNESS (noun)
  The noun DRUNKENNESS has 3 senses:

1. a temporary state resulting from excessive consumption of alcohol

2. 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

3. the act of drinking alcoholic beverages to excess

  Familiarity information: DRUNKENNESS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DRUNKENNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A temporary state resulting from excessive consumption of alcohol

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

drunkenness; inebriation; inebriety; insobriety; intoxication; tipsiness

Hypernyms ("drunkenness" is a kind of...):

temporary state (a state that continues for a limited time)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "drunkenness"):

grogginess (a dazed and staggering state caused by alcohol)

sottishness (stupefaction from drink)

Antonym:

soberness (the state of being sober and not intoxicated by alcohol)

Derivation:

drunken (given to or marked by the consumption of alcohol)

Sense 2

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

alcohol addiction; alcoholism; drunkenness; inebriation

Hypernyms ("drunkenness" is a kind of...):

drug addiction; white plague (an addiction to a drug (especially a narcotic drug))

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of drinking alcoholic beverages to excess

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

boozing; crapulence; drink; drinking; drunkenness

Context example:

drink was his downfall

Hypernyms ("drunkenness" is a kind of...):

intemperance; intemperateness (consumption of alcoholic drinks)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "drunkenness"):

drinking bout (a long period of drinking)

 Context examples 

While neither blood and urine tests, nor factors such as age, sex, body weight, drinking habits and hangover frequency, helped to predict hangover intensity, vomiting and perceived drunkenness were associated with heavier hangover.

(Wine before beer, or beer before wine? Either way, you’ll be hungover, University of Cambridge)

Five of them were on their feet, flushed and swollen, suddenly called out of the first sleep of drunkenness.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

In the corner a very fat man was lying all a-sprawl upon a truss, snoring stertorously, and evidently in the last stage of drunkenness.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She felt that half this folly must be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to the passing hour.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Wolf Larsen it was, always Wolf Larsen, enslaver and tormentor of men, a male Circe and these his swine, suffering brutes that grovelled before him and revolted only in drunkenness and in secrecy.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And in review would pass along the corridors of memory all previous thrills and burnings he had known,—the drunkenness of wine, the caresses of women, the rough play and give and take of physical contests,—and they seemed trivial and mean compared with this sublime ardor he now enjoyed.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

That is all, the drunkenness of life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast, the babbling of the life that is insane with consciousness that it is alive.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But that was by no means the worst of it, for after a day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)