Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 207

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Mellow

And yet another one of Grose’s definitions about alcohol, following just after mauled, this one is defined as “almost drunk”. It might seem that this is a more recent way of defining being tipsy rather than drunk, but it dates back to the beginning of the seventeenth century and it has never fallen out of usage.