katzenjammer

plural katzenjammers · alternative Katzenjammer

1. A hangover.

   Also, I had found my way into the realm of the mind, and I was intellectually intoxicated. (Alas! as I was to learn at a later period, intellectual intoxication too, has its katzenjammer.)

   1913 August, Jack London, John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC

   1 more example

   In those days a still-birth brought as high as ten dollars and after riding the shoot-the-chutes we always left a little stale beer for the morning because the finest thing in the world for Katzenjammer is a glass of stale beer.

   1936, Henry Miller, “Burlesk”, in Black Spring, Paris: The Obelisk Press […], →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, 1963, →ISBN, page 229

2. Jitters; discord; confusion.

   1 more example

   Tell you the truth, I've had an intimation from the State Department—unofficially, of course—that whenever a soldier of fortune demands a fleet of gunboats in a case of revolutionary katzenjammer, I should cut the cable, give him all the tobacco he wants, and after he's shot take his clothes, if they fit me, for part payment of my salary.

   1909 April, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Two Renegades”, in Roads of Destiny, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 356

3. Depression.

plural Katzenjammers

1. Alternative letter-case form of katzenjammer.

   He is naked to the waist to show the plump white arms and shoulders and the satiny skin of the voluptuary; one of those men whose heads and whose stomachs are too loyal ever to give them Katzenjammer or remorse.

   1871, John Hay, Castilian Days