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steamboats

adj

Etymology

Perhaps from Steamboat Willie, rhyming slang for silly, or perhaps from a stereotype of steamboat passengers getting drunk.

Definitions

  1. Drunk

    Drunk; intoxicated.

    • Joe and The Tongue especially are absolutely steamboats by the time we reach the Niccy, and the 'bouncers' – furtive damp chemistry teachers on an ego trip – turn us all sneeringly away in their clean-spitting accents:
    • Somebody absolutely steamboats he says on sweet warm wine swigged plaincover from a paper bag squats in a puddle with nothing to sell […]
    • The truth is that nobody remembered; they had all been absolutely steamboats.

  2. plural of steamboat

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for steamboats. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA