Word.ws English Dictionary

wet the shamrock

Syllables: wet the sham·rockUK/ˌwɛt ðə ˈʃæmɹɒk//ˌwɛt ðə ˈʃæmˌɹɑk/

wet the shamrock verb: to go for an alcoholic drink, especially as part of a victory celebration or on Saint Patrick's Day.

Verb

wet the shamrock (third-person singular simple present wets the shamrock, present participle wetting the shamrock, simple past and past participle wet the shamrock or wetted the shamrock)

  1. (Ireland, idiomatic, informal, intransitive) To go for an alcoholic drink, especially as part of a victory celebration or on Saint Patrick's Day.
    • The Meadovv Trefoyls are called in Iriſh Shamrocks, […] The VVord Seamar Leaune and Seamar-orge, being in ſignification the ſame, […] This Plant is vvorn by the People in their Hats upon the 17. Day of March yearly, (vvhich is called St. Patrick’s Day.) […] Hovvever that be, vvhen they vvet their...[1727, Caleb Threlkeld, “TRIFOLIUM PRATENSE ALBUM, White Flowered Meadow Trefoyl.”, in Synopsis stirpium Hibernicarum alphabetic[a]e dispositarum. Sive commentatio de plantis indigenis præsertim...
    • In the days of our forefathers it was always customary to wet the shamrock, and indeed this good old custom has by no means become obsolete. And to carry it into effect, the saint's [Saint Patrick's] health is drunk in the morning from a brimming bowl called "Paddy's pot," which has a very...1869 March 13, R. C., “Notes. St. Patrick’s Day: The Shamrock and Shillelah”, in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, etc., volume III (4th Series)...

Examples of wet the shamrock in a sentence

  • In the days of our forefathers it was always customary to wet the shamrock, and indeed this good old custom has by no means become obsolete.1869 March 13, R. C., “Notes. St. Patrick’s Day: The Shamrock and Shillelah”, in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for...
  • We remembered friends at home in our potations, wet the shamrock, and sang the "Wearing of the Green."1885, James McQuade, “St. Kitt’s”, in The Cruise of the Montauk to Bermuda, the West Indies and Florida, New York, N.Y.: Thomas R. Knox &...
  • [T]he crowd drifted away towards the hotel in search of something to wet the shamrock and warm themselves up.2010, Claire Hopper, “Wetting the Shamrock”, in A Fine Irish Season, [Morrisville, N.C.]: [Lulu.com], →ISBN, page 65:

Forms of wet the shamrock

third-person singular presentwets the shamrock
present participlewetting the shamrock
past participlewet the shamrock
pastwet the shamrock
past participlewetted the shamrock
pastwetted the shamrock

Origin of wet the shamrock

From wet (“to celebrate by drinking alcohol”) + the + shamrock (“trefoil leaf of any small clover, especially Trifolium repens, or a clover-like plant, commonly used as a symbol of Ireland”), from the custom, also known as drowning the shamrock, of removing a shamrock worn on one’s clothing on Saint Patrick’s Day and placing it at the bottom of a glass which is then filled with an alcoholic beverage and consumed; according to some authorities the shamrock is then retrieved from the empty glass and thrown over the left shoulder.

Questions about wet the shamrock

What does wet the shamrock mean?
Wet the shamrock means to go for an alcoholic drink, especially as part of a victory celebration or on Saint Patrick's Day.
How do you use wet the shamrock in a sentence?
In the days of our forefathers it was always customary to wet the shamrock, and indeed this good old custom has by no means become obsolete.
What part of speech is wet the shamrock?
Wet the shamrock is a verb.
How do you pronounce wet the shamrock?
Wet the shamrock is pronounced /ˌwɛt ðə ˈʃæmɹɒk/ (UK).
What is the past tense of wet the shamrock?
The past tense of wet the shamrock is wet the shamrock.

Words near wet the shamrock in the dictionary

  1. wet t-shirt contests
  2. wet tech
  3. wet the baby's head
  4. wet the bed
  5. wet the other eye
  6. wet the shamrock
  7. wet through
  8. Wet Toast Eagles
  9. wet weed
  10. wet well
  11. wet wells

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wet the shamrock (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-wet the shamrock.oga.

Cite this entry: “wet the shamrock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wet_the_shamrock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.