kill-devil

Noun

kill-devil (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Synonym of rum, an alcoholic beverage distilled from sugarcane, similar spirits.
   • ... I went aboard the Fellowship of 100 and 70 Tuns a Flemish bottom, the Master George Luxon of Bittiford in Devonshire, several of my friends came to bid me farewell, among the rest Captain Thomas Wannerton who drank to me a pint of kill-devil alias Rhum at a draught ...1639 September 24, John Josselyn, Journal in An Account of Two Voyages to New-England... (1673), p. 24
   • ...the chiefe fudling they make in the Island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Devill, and this is made of suggar canes distilled, a hott, hellish and terrible liquor.c. 1651, "A Briefe Description of the Island of Barbados" in Trinity College MS G4, p. 15

   Synonyms:

   rum