Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun idiomatic An
alcoholic drink taken themorning after to cure ahangover orwithdrawal symptoms .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an alcoholic drink supposed to cure a hangover
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From “hair of the dog that bit you”, a folk remedy for rabies by placing hair from the dog that bites one into the wound. The use of the phrase as a metaphor for a hangover treatment dates at least to the 16th century.
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Examples
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skipvia commented on the word hair of the dog
Typically, ingesting alcohol to cure a hangover. Strange. See Body Metaphors.
February 28, 2008
yarb commented on the word hair of the dog
Short for "a hair of the dog that bit you", i.e. the basic principle of voodoo or vaccination.
February 28, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word hair of the dog
Ooh, and how many other things do voodoo and vaccination actually have in common?
February 28, 2008
amacleod03 commented on the word hair of the dog
Apparently people used to actually believe that if a dog bit you, its hair would cure you of the bite. It certainly wouldn't appeal to me to try to pluck a hair from any animal that had bitten me. On the other hand, if I could get someone else to do it, I might reap a small amount of revenge, though not so very much.
The concept is one that is widely held, across cultures--not just in Vodou. Perhaps it appears in its most explicit forms in the fundamental principle of homeopathy: similia similibus, curantur or “likes are cured by likes.�?
July 11, 2009