Word.ws English Dictionary

tanglelegs

tanglelegs noun: alcoholic liquor.

Noun

tanglelegs (uncountable)

  1. (US, archaic) Alcoholic liquor.
    • You remind me of a sailor I saw the other day. Jack was already "half seas over," when he went into Smith's and called for an ounce of old tangle-legs. Thinks I, what is that? So I kept my eye on the scales, but Smith understood him; so he gave him a glass, you see, and off he went. But, dear me, I...1844, “The Monster of Many Names”, in Temperance Dialogues, New York: American Temperance Union
    • Whiskee iz one ov the tonicks, i think, but i aint sure, i kno it iz one ov the tanglelegs, for I hav seen it tried often.1879, Henry Wheeler Shaw, “March 1879”, in Josh Billings' Old Farmer's Allminax; republished in Josh Billings' Old Farmer's Allminax, 1870–1879, New York: G. W. Dillingham, 1902

Forms of tanglelegs

alternative formtangle-leg

Origin of tanglelegs

From tangle + legs.

Questions about tanglelegs

What does tanglelegs mean?
Tanglelegs means alcoholic liquor.
What part of speech is tanglelegs?
Tanglelegs is a noun.

Words near tanglelegs in the dictionary

  1. tanglefooted
  2. tanglegram
  3. tanglegrams
  4. tanglehead
  5. tangleheads
  6. tanglelegs
  7. tanglement
  8. tanglements
  9. tangleproof
  10. tangler
  11. tangleroot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tanglelegs (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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