dead men
Preserved but no longer current.
Meaning · English
Empty bottles. Down among the dead men let me lie. Let me get so intoxicated as to slip from my chair, and lie under the table with the empty bottles.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “dead men” mean?
Empty bottles. Down among the dead men let me lie. Let me get so intoxicated as to slip from my chair, and lie under the table with the empty bottles.
Is “dead men” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.