Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Given to or marked by the consumption of alcoholic drink.
  • adjective Very absorbent, as paper or soil.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having the quality of absorbing or imbibing fluids or moisture; absorbent; spongy.
  • Fond of drinking intoxicating liquors; addicted to drink; proceeding from or characterized by such tendency: as, bibulous propensities.
  • Relating to drink or drinking: as, bibulous lore.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Readily imbibing fluids or moisture; spongy.
  • adjective Inclined to drink; addicted to tippling.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective very absorbent
  • adjective given to or marked by the consumption of alcohol

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective given to or marked by the consumption of alcohol

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin bibulus, from bibere, to drink; see pō(i)- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin bibulus (“freely or readily drinking”, from bibō, “I drink”; whence also beverage and imbibe) +‎ -ous

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Examples

  • The only nod to the bibulous was the Toll House Cocktail, a house-special from the same (now long-gone) Whitman, Mass., inn famous for its chocolate-chip cookies.

    Cranberry Cocktail Confusion 2008

  • The people in Taiwan are not bibulous, which is to their credit but an annoyance to us tourist lushes.

    MLA K. A. Laity 2005

  • There is an experiment, which seems to evince this venous absorption, which consists in the external application of a stimulus to the lips, as of vinegar, by which they become instantly pale; that is, the bibulous mouths of the veins by this stimulus are excited to absorb the blood faster, than it can be supplied by the usual arterial exertion.

    Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • By the way, our Catholic friends seem to forget that "bibulous" Wittenberg was

    Luther Examined and Reexamined A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation 1904

  • There's great tenderness in the scene where Miron remembers pouring vodka on a ripe, naked Tanya as a kind of bibulous foreplay.

    Variety.com 2010

  • Then there are the characters who inhabit the pages, such as the bibulous hack Lunchtime O'Booze and Glenda Slag, a parody of many a female newspaper columnist whose opinions are as fickle and self-contradictory as her readers'.

    Britain's All-Seeing Private Eye Richard Holledge 2011

  • Throughout his bibulous wanderings, Mr. Wilson never loses sight of the drink in the glass.

    On a Spirited Journey Pervaiz Shallwani 2010

  • A furious Donovan called off the fox project, but it lived on, if only at bibulous OSS gatherings.

    A Covert Affair Jennet Conant 2011

  • He was raucous, bibulous, lecherous and with a genius for showing an equal contempt for the common man and those in power.

    Simon Jenkins: Half a Century After Mencken's Death, Opinion Is What is Riding High Simon Jenkins 2011

  • Then there are the characters who inhabit the pages, such as the bibulous hack Lunchtime O'Booze and Glenda Slag, a parody of many a female newspaper columnist whose opinions are as fickle and self-contradictory as her readers'.

    News You Shouldn't Use Richard Holledge 2011

Comments

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  • got it thanks to sarra

    December 9, 2006

  • the preacher was so bibulous

    November 6, 2009