Word.ws English Dictionary

on the brew

on the brew prepositional phrase: on the dole; receiving unemployment benefit.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (slang) On the dole; receiving unemployment benefit.
    • "What do the Catholics do for work?"
      "Go on the brew. You know the stayet. The Relief. Then they hang around the bars and the bookie shops. There's nothin' else they can do."1969, New York Magazine, volume 2, number 11, page 31
    • Lost her job like so many others. It's hard to get jobs in retail these days, there's a lot of shops closing down. Senga's signed on the brew, but hopefully something will come up.2017, Lynda Collins, Jo Zebedee, M. Rush, Ghosts in the Glass and Other Stories, page 216

Questions about on the brew

What does on the brew mean?
On the brew means on the dole; receiving unemployment benefit.
What part of speech is on the brew?
On the brew is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on the brew in the dictionary

  1. on the books
  2. on the bounce
  3. on the bow
  4. on the brain
  5. on the breadline
  6. on the brew
  7. on the brink
  8. on the brink of
  9. on the bubble
  10. on the bum
  11. on the bung

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on the brew (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: “on the brew.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/on_the_brew. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.