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piss and vinegar

piss and vinegar noun: exuberance or enthusiasm, especially to an excessive degree; bravado; youthful energy.

Noun

piss and vinegar (uncountable)

  1. (US, slang, vulgar) Exuberance or enthusiasm, especially to an excessive degree; bravado; youthful energy.
    • "I know what's a matter. Young fella, all full a piss an' vinegar. Wanta be a hell of a guy all the time."1940, John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Viking, page 248
    • Everyone wants that: the vigor, fire, piss and vinegar. You really believe that you're taking on the world.2008 October 2, David Fricke, “Q&A: Metallica's James Hetfield”, in Rolling Stone, retrieved 21 Feb 2009

Synonyms of piss and vinegar

Words formed from piss and vinegar

Questions about piss and vinegar

What does piss and vinegar mean?
Piss and vinegar means exuberance or enthusiasm, especially to an excessive degree; bravado; youthful energy.
What part of speech is piss and vinegar?
Piss and vinegar is a noun.

Words near piss and vinegar in the dictionary

  1. piss
  2. piss about
  3. piss all
  4. piss all over
  5. piss and moan
  6. piss and vinegar
  7. piss and wind
  8. piss ant
  9. piss ants
  10. piss around
  11. piss artist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: piss and vinegar (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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