English · Idiom Historical

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Preserved but no longer current.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.

Topics: Life & death Historical slang (1800s)

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.

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