hit the bottle
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to start drinking heavily
Literally: strike a container of liquor
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Hitting the bottle too hard means the beneficial effect of alcohol disappears.
Teachers report a common range of such self - indulgences: allowing yourself (in the middle of a bad patch) to give in to temptations like cream cakes, cigarettes, a bottle of your favourite booze or a spending spree.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “hit the bottle” mean?
to start drinking heavily Literally: strike a container of liquor
Is “hit the bottle” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.
What is the closest equivalent?
“rượu chè” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.