drunkardness

From drunkard +‎ -ness.

drunkardness (uncountable)

1. The quality of being a drunkard.

   Synonym: drunkardry

   • 1814 December 24, Shadrach Duncan, “December the fourth Saterday^[sic] 1814”, in [Hardin County: South Fork Meeting House Rules (2)] (Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection; Kentucky: Counties & Towns), page [22]:

     Breathen^{[sic – meaning Brethren]} John Brunk Juner and Wilson Bomer gave the Church satisfaction for being over taken^[sic] in drunkardness

   • 1832 July 7, “Confession of a Convict”, in Boston Masonic Mirror, volume IV, number 2, Boston, Mass.: Moore & Sevey, →ISSN, →OCLC, page [4], column 3:

     I have toiled through twenty years more—I have lived a life of the most appalling suffering and misery—and now whilst I totter on the brink of eternity, I am still a drunkard! If ever a human being has suffered for the crime of drunkardness, that being am I.

     According to the text above the title, “The following Tale was written by one of the most highly gifted Poets in America.”

   • 1882, Edward Doyle, act IV, in Cagliostro. A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts., New York, N.Y.: […] W. B. Smith & Co., →OCLC, page 94:

     Yet, never did I in my drunkardness— […] / While my poor post of a husband held a horse, / Or sponged a mule, or wagon, for a drink,— / Smother a child in bed, or let one tumble / Into a tub and drown, as you did, after / Returning home from church, where, in the hymning, / You and your old hag mother had been steepling / On either side of that black-whiskered villain.

   • 1887 January 8, “South Washington”, in W[illiam] Calvin Chase, editor, The Washington Bee, volume V, number 32, Washington, D.C., →ISSN, →OCLC, page [3], column 3:

     A large number of arrests for drunkardness and other disorder,^[sic] were made during the Christmas week, but only in communities where whisky was sold.

   • 1943 March, Walter F[rancis] Morris, Jr., “A Child of God”, in Thomas J. Heath, editor, The Stylus, volume LVI, number 4, Chestnut Hill, Mass.: Boston College, →OCLC, section IV, page 25, column 2:

     Even if the city did take the shape of a distorted diabolical ogre unleashing enticement and temptation to drunkardness, sin and lust, at the same time it took the shape of a generous, beautiful maiden offering education and culture, hospitals and libraries, and churches for the administering of Sacraments and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

   • 2011, Richard ‘Bingy’ Brown, chapter 11, in Living the Dream, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 232:

     People in Europe were already following the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, which took place in December just like de Bacchanal celebration. This was a time of wild revelry, drunkardness, orgies, and merrymaking.