Word.ws English Dictionary

merry-go-down

merry-go-down noun: strong ale.

Noun

merry-go-down (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete, slang) strong ale
    • In Ruſcia, there are no preſents but of meate or drinke; I preſent you vvith meate, and you in honourable courteſie to requite mee, can do no leſſe then preſent mee vvith the beſt mornings draught of merry-go-downe in your quarters, […]1599, [Thomas] Nashe, “[The Epistle Dedicatorie]”, in Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], →OCLC

Questions about merry-go-down

What does merry-go-down mean?
Merry-go-down means strong ale.
What part of speech is merry-go-down?
Merry-go-down is a noun.

Words near merry-go-down in the dictionary

  1. merry Xmas
  2. merry-andrew
  3. merry-andrews
  4. merry-go-around
  5. merry-go-arounds
  6. merry-go-down
  7. merry-go-round
  8. merry-go-rounds
  9. merry-go-sorry
  10. merry-go-whirl
  11. merry-go-whirls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: merry-go-down (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: “merry-go-down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/merry-go-down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.