Word.ws English Dictionary

kill-the-beggar

kill-the-beggar noun: cheap and poor-quality whiskey.

Noun

kill-the-beggar (uncountable)

  1. (Ireland, obsolete, slang) Cheap and poor-quality whiskey.
    • In your examination of Monday, you spoke of kill-the-beggar-whiskey; has any analysis been made of that whiskey?1834 June 18, James Silk Buckingham, “Minutes of Evidence, Wednesday, the Eighteenth Day of June, 1834”, in Evidence on Drunkenness, London: British and Foreign Temperance Society, published 1834...
    • To men of common gumption, / Hot strange, besides, must seem / At this time any scheme / To put a check upon potheen's consumption, / When all are calling for Irish Poor Laws! / Instead of framing more laws, / To pauperism if you'd give a pegger, / Don't check, but patronise their...1835, Thomas Hood, “Ode to J. S. Buckingham, Esq. M.P.”, in The Comic Annual, pages 135–136

Origin of kill-the-beggar

From kill + the + beggar.

Questions about kill-the-beggar

What does kill-the-beggar mean?
Kill-the-beggar means cheap and poor-quality whiskey.
What part of speech is kill-the-beggar?
Kill-the-beggar is a noun.

Words near kill-the-beggar in the dictionary

  1. kill-offs
  2. kill-priest
  3. kill-shot
  4. kill-shots
  5. kill-switch
  6. kill-the-beggar
  7. kill-time
  8. kill-times
  9. kill-to-death ratio
  10. kill-to-death ratios
  11. kill-worthy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kill-the-beggar (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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