Word.ws English Dictionary

beer and skittles

beer and skittles noun: fun times; pleasure and leisure.

Noun

beer and skittles pl (plural only)

  1. (UK, idiomatic, plural, plural-only) Fun times; pleasure and leisure.
    • Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn't all beer and skittles—but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education.1857, Thomas Hughes, chapter 2, in Tom Brown's School Days
    • Being a soldier's wife isn't all beer and skittles.1911, Anthony Hope, chapter 22, in Mrs. Maxon Protests, page 259

Examples of beer and skittles in a sentence

  • His plight reveals a truth that's often obscured by the envy of newspaper readers; that it's not all beer and skittles in restaurant-critic land.2012 March 24, John Walsh, “The perils of reviewing restaurants”, in The Independent:
  • "It hasn't all been beer and skittles," he says dryly.2022 October 5, Nick Brodrick, “Pendolinos: a huge role to play”, in RAIL, number 967, page 41:

Synonyms of beer and skittles

6 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of beer and skittles

Forms of beer and skittles

alternative formskittles and beer

Origin of beer and skittles

Found as early as 1837, in Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, where it appears in the form, “It’s a reg’lar holiday to them—all porter and skittles”. The most common form, as a negative admonition, appears to have been popularized by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days (1857, see quotation below).

Words formed from beer and skittles

Questions about beer and skittles

What does beer and skittles mean?
Beer and skittles means fun times; pleasure and leisure.
How do you use beer and skittles in a sentence?
His plight reveals a truth that's often obscured by the envy of newspaper readers; that it's not all beer and skittles in restaurant-critic land.
What part of speech is beer and skittles?
Beer and skittles is a noun.

Words near beer and skittles in the dictionary

  1. beeps out
  2. beepy
  3. beer
  4. beer and pretzels game
  5. beer and pretzels games
  6. beer and skittles
  7. beer babies
  8. beer baby
  9. beer bar
  10. beer baron
  11. beer barons

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beer and skittles (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-beer and skittles.ogg.

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