one over the eight

1920s UK origin,^[1] from the idea that one can drink eight pints of beer without getting drunk.^[2]

one over the eight (comparative more one over the eight, superlative most one over the eight)

1. (colloquial) Drunk.
   • 1928, Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall:

     “Actually,” said the Captain, “and strictly between ourselves, mind, I was run over by a tram in Stoke-on-Trent when I was one-over-the-eight.”

   • 2012 October 6, Ed Vulliamy, “BB King at 87: the last of the great bluesmen”, in The Observer‎:

     Around 11pm BB King appears onstage, much of his audience one over the eight, talkative but mellow, ready for what is (in my book at least) the experience of a lifetime.

   • 2016, E. H. Mikhail, editor, Brendan Behan: Interviews and Recollections, volume I, Springer, →ISBN, page 147:

     To put it mildly, Brendan, you don't appear at your best on television when you've got one over the eight.

one over the eight

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1. (colloquial) One or more servings too many of alcohol, leading to drunkenness; one too many.
   • 1924, Edgar Wallace, The Face in the Night:

     “She’s had one over the eight,” grinned the driver. Audrey’s first impression was that the man was speaking of her, and she wondered what he meant. But he was looking beyond her, and, following the direction of his eyes, she saw a sight that first sickened and then moved her to pity. Clinging to the rails that bordered the area was a woman. She held tight with one hand, swaying unsteadily, whilst with the other she was manipulating the knocker of the front door of the house next to that place of mystery which she had left.

   • 1972 September 26, G.M.Shimanov, translated by The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in Canada, Abuse of Psychiatry for Political Repression in the Soviet Union, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 218:

     In the evening a middle-aged orderly stopped me in he corridor. He had had one over the eight.

   • 2011 June, Celia Parson, Yo Yo, page 95:

     Unfortunately he always had one over the eight. He was unable to go into the pub and have a couple of drinks and come out again. He’d have to stay until he’d had too much. Worse than this was the fact that he always drove home in that state. Luckily it was only a couple of miles out in the country.

   • 2011, Eilidh Nisbet, Giddy Old School: The Diary of a Swot 1948-1951:

     The exercises were handed back. Rena’s simply had “COPY” printed across it in bold red letters; mine had a few squiggly lines resembling the track left by a snail which has had one over the eight

   • 2012 December 20, Aubrey Malone, Whirlwind:

     Other nights it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t miss the shots the world number 97 would have got with his eyes closed. I didn’t insult my mates on the way home. I didn’t drink one over the eight and risk losing my licence…again.

   • 2016 October 20, G.E.Larrisey, From Care to Somewhere, page 131:

     I had one over the eight whilst I was in the pub. When I got back home I drunkenly took my lovely pink cake upstairs to my room to show Pete. I dropped it coming back down the stairs to put it away. I managed to catch it before it landed and the icing rippled in the middle as the cake concertinaed. It still tasted delicious though!