Meanings
plural alehouses · alternative ale house · alternative ale-house
- A business, such as an inn or tavern, where ale is sold; (loosely) any beerhouse.
Near-synonyms: (broadly synonymous) beerhouse, beer parlour, beer bar, pub, saloon; (overlapping) brewpub
3 more examples
Find him in a pulpit but twiſe in the yeare, And Ile find him fortie times in the ale-houſe taſting ſtrong beare.
1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act IBut go to—carry thy roisterers elsewhere—to the alehouse if they list, and there are crowns to pay your charges—make out the day’s madness without doing more mischief, and be wise men to-morrow—and hereafter learn to serve a good cause better than by acting like ruffians.
1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XV, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 326Mention has been already made more than once, of a certain Dragon who swung and creaked complainingly before the village ale-house door.
1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 3, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC, page 19Synonyms: beerhouse, beer parlour, beer bar, pub, saloon, brewpub
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA business, such as an inn or tavern, where ale is sold; (loosely) any beerhouse.
Origin
- Proto-Germanic*aluþhūsą
- Old Englishealuhūs
- Middle Englishalehous
- Englishalehouse
From Middle English alehous, alehuse from Old English ealuhūs. By surface analysis, ale + house.
More words from Middle English, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
alehouse. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/alehouse
“alehouse.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/alehouse. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “alehouse,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/alehouse.
Source: alehouse on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.