Word.ws English Dictionary

alcoholiday

Syllables: al·co·hol·i·day/ˌælkəˈhɒlɪdeɪ/US/ˌælkəˈhɒləˌdeɪ/

alcoholiday noun: a holiday or leisure time spent drinking alcohol.

Noun

alcoholiday (plural alcoholidays)

  1. (humorous, informal) A holiday or leisure time spent drinking alcohol.
    • [N]ow you see we are out on a frolic, a spree,—on an alcoholiday. See it?1883, Mrs. Charles H[enry] Fernald [i.e., Maria Elizabeth Fernald?], “A Temperance Frolic”, in Footlight Frolics: Entertainments for Home and School […], Boston, Mass.: Lee and Shephard; New York...
    • Before the American adventure Oscar [Wilde] had dealt indulgently with Willie [Wilde]'s weakness: "Oh, he occasionally takes an alcoholiday." But when his life became one long alcoholiday his younger brother, who hated to see people dirty, drunken and disreputable, ceased to be indulgent. "He...a. 1901 (date spoken), Hesketh Pearson, quoting Oscar Wilde, “The Family”, in Oscar Wilde: His Life and Wit, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, published 1946, →OCLC, page 98
  2. (humorous, informal, rare) A period of time during which one intentionally abstains from drinking alcohol.
    • For skin disorders, we sometimes fix the diet by ordering the patient off the Seven Deadly C's—cocktails, coffee, chocolate, condiments, carbohydrates, cigarettes, and cheese. We often add an admonition to take an alcoholiday.1942 September, Lemuel P. Ereaux, “The Bare Facts”, in Leland D. Case, editor, The Rotarian, volume XLI, number 3, Chicago, Ill.: Rotary International, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 43, column 3

Examples of alcoholiday in a sentence

  • In a short story that I have recently read, one of the characters, a "sport," speaks of the Christmas season as the alcoholidays.1911 October–November, A[braham] A[rden] Brill, “Freud’s Theory of Wit”, in Morton Prince, editor, The Journal of Abnormal Psychology...
  • There will be loss of time and loss of work on this account, and instead of half-holidays there will, too often it is to be feared, be half-alcoholidays.1920, International Brewers’ Journal, volume 56, London: William Reed, →OCLC, page 450, column 1:
  • I guess the charm of playing host to Westerners' pig-wild cheap Easyjet alcoholidays had worn off a bit.2013, Geoff Berner, “Drunken Self-sabotage”, in Shannon Whibbs, editor, Festival Man, Toronto, Ont.: Dundurn Press, →ISBN, page 122:

Forms of alcoholiday

pluralalcoholidays

Origin of alcoholiday

Blend of alcohol + holiday.

Questions about alcoholiday

What does alcoholiday mean?
Alcoholiday means a holiday or leisure time spent drinking alcohol.
How do you use alcoholiday in a sentence?
In a short story that I have recently read, one of the characters, a "sport," speaks of the Christmas season as the alcoholidays.
What part of speech is alcoholiday?
Alcoholiday is a noun.
How do you pronounce alcoholiday?
Alcoholiday is pronounced /ˌælkəˈhɒlɪdeɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of alcoholiday?
The plural of alcoholiday is alcoholidays.

Words near alcoholiday in the dictionary

  1. alcoholic encephalopathy
  2. alcoholically
  3. alcoholicity
  4. alcoholics
  5. Alcoholics Anonymous
  6. alcoholiday
  7. alcoholidays
  8. alcoholimeter
  9. alcoholimeters
  10. alcoholisation
  11. alcoholisations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: alcoholiday (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-alcoholiday.wav.

Cite this entry: “alcoholiday.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/alcoholiday. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.