American Slang For Drunk (Helpful Content!)

The most common American slang term for drunk is “wasted”. This is used just about everywhere to mean very drunk. Other slang terms include “clobbered”, “plowed”, and sometimes “adrip” in common, everyday speech. “Souped-up” is US Navy slang for drunk, and you may sometimes hear “tore up” or “drunk as a boiled owl”.

Drinking culture in America is more or less as prevalent as it is elsewhere, though it is also true that many other countries have a great deal more slang terms for describing drunkenness–the American get by on only a handful of effective slang terms for drunk.

Let’s find out more.

What do Americans say for drunk?

Undoubtedly the most common American slang term for drunk is “wasted”.

This one is used across the country by virtually everyone, and anyone who doesn’t use the term themselves is more or less guaranteed to understand what it means.

It is perhaps slightly more common among somewhat younger generations, but this is by no means a hard and fast rule–it is used by both the young and old in all parts of the country.

Typically it means someone is extremely drunk, but it can also be used in a more liberal way to describe any kind of drunkenness.

“He is wasted, someone call him a cab,” for example.

A variety of other terms are also used across America, though they are on the whole a lot less common and tend to be more limited to certain regions or demographic groups.

One of these is “clobbered”, a common if somewhat archaic American slang term for drunk.

Most people will still understand what you mean by this term even if they don’t use it themselves, and even if they’ve never heard it before will likely be able to figure out the sense from context.

“I was pretty clobbered last night,” for example.

A similar term to this is “plowed”.

This one can have a couple of different meanings, and it can also refer to sex acts–so be a bit careful with how you use it!

To be plowed, though, means to be very drunk, in much the same way that you would say you were wasted or clobbered.

“I’m going to go out and get plowed tonight,” for example.

In the Navy, you may sometimes hear the term “souped-up” to mean very drunk, although this is not as common as it once was–and is not really used at all outside the Navy.

Some other fairly unique and interesting slang terms for drunk include “tore up” or “drunk as a boiled owl”.

Why do Americans say “wasted”?

The term “wasted” has naturally had a few meanings over time, but the first time it is attested in this modern sense of “very drunk” is in the 1950s.

Before that, for a very long time, the term had meant enfeebled, weak or otherwise unable to do things you would normally have no trouble with.

Naturally, when you are drunk, you’re not capable of doing a lot of things that you would normally be able to do.

So, this is the simple origin of this term.

How it became so common is not clear, though its usage in movies and television in this early period no doubt played a big role in its popularity.

Why do Americans say “clobbered”?

When the term “clobbered” first started being used as slang for drunk in America is not as clear.

The term originally was British, and referred to hitting something very hard.

This is first recorded in 1941, and seems to have been an invention of the British Air Force.

There are many slang terms for being drunk that refer to being hit over the head–the idea being that being drunk gives you an awful headache the next morning.

More than that, we can’t really say for sure.

Why do Americans say “plowed”?

Again, we aren’t really sure when this one first became slang for being drunk.

To “plow” something is to move around whatever material is on the surface for one purpose or another–whether plowing snow from a driveway or plowing earth to make it ripe for planting seeds.

The sense, then, was probably just that being drunk made you feel as though you had been plowed the next morning, or even that it turned up upside down in some sense.

The word itself is naturally very old, deriving from the end of the 14th Century.

Why do Americans say “as drunk as a boiled owl”?

One of the most strange and colorful slang terms for being drunk in America is to be “as drunk as a boiled owl”. It is first attested in the 19th Century, and a dictionary of 1937 believes it to be a corruption of the phrase “as drunk as Abel Boyle”.

There is no evidence of a practice of boiling owls, nor would there be any reason or benefit to doing so!

This term, then, most likely simply caught on as a slang phrase because people found it humorous and nonsensical.  

There are certainly some colorful and unique terms for drunkenness in America, then.

For the most part, though, the average American is far more likely just to say that they are “wasted” rather than anything else.

With that said, certain generations or people from certain areas may well use a variety of other terms for drunk which you will be less familiar with from movies and TV.

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