in one's cups

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in one’s cups

1. (idiomatic) Drunk; in the act of consuming alcohol liberally.
   • 1809, Washington Irving, chapter 6, in Knickerbocker's History of New York:

     [T]he natives were an honest, social race of jolly roysterers, who had no objection to a drinking bout, and were very merry in their cups.

   • 1852, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 21, in The Blithedale Romance:

     They grew only the more sober in their cups; there was no confused babble nor boisterous laughter. They sucked in the joyous fire of the decanters and kept it smouldering in their inmost recesses.

   • 1906, E. W. Hornung, chapter 1, in The Shadow of the Rope:

     [H]ere he gambled, there he drank; and in his cups every virtue dissolved.

   • 2006 November 17, Margaret Hawkins, “Home Alone: Blackmon photos find solitude among domestic chaos”, in Chicago Sun-Times, page NC50:

     The woman on the other hand is in her cups swigging from one wine glass while another stands at her elbow.

• See Thesaurus:drunk