Word.ws English Dictionary

builder's tea

builder's tea noun: black tea, brewed strong and served in a large mug with milk and often sugar.

Noun

builder's tea (countable and uncountable, plural builder's teas)

  1. (UK, uncountable) Black tea, brewed strong and served in a large mug with milk and often sugar.
    • It has got the lot, this, underneath its hinged awning: eggs any way, sausage, old-fashioned burgers and builders' tea.2001 March 30, Stephen Moss, “Meals on wheels”, in The Guardian
    • I ate a kebab in a Cypriot cafe with the freezing rain spatting in the doorway and I was poured a soup-like cup of builder's tea.2005, Barbara Bailey, An eccentric marriage: Living with Jim, →ISBN, page 185
    Synonyms:
    builder's brew
  2. (UK, countable) A serving thereof.

Examples of builder's tea in a sentence

  • The meal should be taken with milky "builder's tea" steeped strong in the mug.2008, William Morrow, Beef: The untold story of how milk, meat and muscle shaped the world, →ISBN, page 177:
  • Armed with a cup of Alison's strong, thick, builder's tea, Mrs Jamal started falteringly into the story she had told countless times to sceptical police officers and lawyers.2010, M. R. Hall, The Disappeared, →ISBN:

Synonyms of builder's tea

Forms of builder's tea

pluralbuilder's teas

Origin of builder's tea

From builder + -'s + tea, from its supposedly being the preferred type of tea of British builders and construction workers.

Questions about builder's tea

What does builder's tea mean?
Builder's tea means black tea, brewed strong and served in a large mug with milk and often sugar.
How do you use builder's tea in a sentence?
The meal should be taken with milky "builder's tea" steeped strong in the mug.
What part of speech is builder's tea?
Builder's tea is a noun.
What is the plural of builder's tea?
The plural of builder's tea is builder's teas.

Words near builder's tea in the dictionary

  1. builder's cup
  2. builder's cups
  3. builder's mug
  4. builder's mugs
  5. builder's remedy
  6. builder's tea
  7. builder's teas
  8. builderer
  9. builderers
  10. buildering
  11. builders

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: builder's tea (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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Cite this entry: “builder's tea.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/builder%27s_tea. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.