on the wagon
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
not drinking alcohol after a period of heavy drinking
Literally: on a wagon
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
When he first came in I offered him a drink out of courtesy and I think he thought I was taking the Mick out of his drinking in the past.
He said: ' I think the values for leasing are perhaps on the low side, considering that people know what they are going to get this year.
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.
Common questions
What does “on the wagon” mean?
not drinking alcohol after a period of heavy drinking Literally: on a wagon
Is “on the wagon” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.