carouse

From Middle French carousser (“to quaff, drink, swill”), from German gar aus (literally “all out, quite out”), from gar austrinken (“to drink up entirely, guzzle”).^[1] Compare German Garaus.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /kəˈɹaʊz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊz

carouse (third-person singular simple present carouses, present participle carousing, simple past and past participle caroused)

1. (intransitive) To engage in a noisy or drunken social gathering. [from 1550s]

   We are all going to carouse at Brian's tonight.

2. (intransitive) To drink to excess.

   If I survive this headache, I promise no more carousing at Brian's.

carouse (plural carouses)

1. A large draught of liquor.
   • 1600, William Kempe, Kemps nine daies vvonder, pages 4–5:

     […] therefore forward I went with my hey-de-gaies to Ilford, where I againe reſted, and was by the people of the towne and countrey there-about very very wel welcomed, being offred carowſes in the great ſpoon, one whole draught being able at that time to haue drawne my little wit drye; […]

   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene viii]:

     Had our great Pallace the capacity
     To Campe this hoaſt, we all would ſup together,
     And drinke Carowſes to the next dayes Fate […]

   • 1612, John Davies, Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued:

     […] he hadde ſo many eyes watching ouer him, as he coulde not drinke a full Carouſe of Sacke, but the State was aduertised thereof, within few houres after.

2. A drinking bout; a carousal.
   • 1725, Homer, “Book II”, in [William Broome], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume I, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC:

     The early feast and late carouse.

   • 1835, Richard Gooch, Oxford and Cambridge Nuts to Crack, page 25:

     PORSON […] would not only frequently “steal a few hours from the night,” but see out both lights and liquids, and seem none the worse for the carouse.

• acerous