Word.ws English Dictionary

near beer

near beer noun: any of a class of malt liquors that contain so little alcohol (usually less than 0.5%) that they will not induce intoxication.

Noun

near beer (countable and uncountable, plural near beers)

  1. Any of a class of malt liquors that contain so little alcohol (usually less than 0.5%) that they will not induce intoxication.
    • That which we now have, and called near beer, with less than a half per cent of alcohol, is not drinkable, it is not palatable, it is not good, it is no part of a meal, nor can it be made a part of a meal.1924, “Proposed Modification of the Prohibition Law to Permit the Manufacture, Sale and Use of 2.75 Per Cent Beverages: Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives...
    • Maybe that near beer was nearer than he thought.1932, Albert DeMond, Boo

Forms of near beer

pluralnear beers

Questions about near beer

What does near beer mean?
Near beer means any of a class of malt liquors that contain so little alcohol (usually less than 0.5%) that they will not induce intoxication.
What part of speech is near beer?
Near beer is a noun.
What is the plural of near beer?
The plural of near beer is near beers.

Words near near beer in the dictionary

  1. near antonyms
  2. near as a toucher
  3. near as dammit
  4. near as damn it
  5. near at hand
  6. near beer
  7. near beers
  8. near by
  9. near cash
  10. near cut
  11. near cuts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: near beer (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: “near beer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/near_beer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.