fox-drunk

English

Etymology

Coined in 1592 by Thomas Nashe in Pierce Penniless, His supplication to the Divell as one of eight types of drunkard named after different animals.

Adjective

fox-drunk (comparative more fox-drunk, superlative most fox-drunk)

1. Crafty and sneaky when drunk.
   • 1592, Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless, His supplication to the Divell‎^[2]:

     […] the eighth is fox-drunk, when he is crafty-drunk, as many of the Dutchmen be, that will never bargain but when they are drunk.

   • 1867, Rural New Yorker‎^[3], volume 18 (1867), New York [etc.] Rural Pub. Co. [etc.]:

     The sixth and last animal of our menagerie is the fox-drunk man. He is crafty, ready to trade horses and cheat if he can. Keen to strike a bargain, leering around with low cunning, peeping through cracks, listening under the eaves, watching for some suspicious thing, sly as a fox, sneaking as a wolf, he is the meanest drunkard of them all.

   • 1961 June, Mechanix Illustrated 1961-06: Vol 57 Iss 6‎^[4], volume 57, number 6, Time Incorporated, →ISSN:

     The fox drunk is just as easy to spot as the wild one especially late at night. He does everything just a little too perfectly to be true. On an open highway or turnpike he drives nice and steady but about five to ten mph below the limit. In the suburbs, he spends too much time when he stops for a stop sign and there is no traffic around.

   • 1989, Porter, Hal, The tilted cross‎^[5], St. Lucia, Qld., Australia: University of Queensland Press, →ISBN, →OCLC:

     […] So much tiptoeing hither and thither, like a thrush! I pretended to use the necessary but hid my money and watch there."
     "Fox-drunk! You was fox-drunk, Poli."