drunkardness

Meanings

noundrunkardness (uncountable)

uncountableThe quality of being a drunkard.
Breathen^([sic – meaning Brethren]) John Brunk Juner and Wilson Bomer gave the Church satisfaction for being over taken^([sic]) in drunkardness
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]
5 more examples
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.
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
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.
1882, Edward Doyle, act IV, in Cagliostro. A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts., New York, N.Y.: […] W. B. Smith & Co., →OCLC, page 94
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.
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
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.
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
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.
2011, Richard ‘Bingy’ Brown, chapter 11, in Living the Dream, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 232
Synonyms: drunkardry