eat, drink and be merry

proverb

Enjoy yourself; forget your cares; do not worry.

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

proverb
  1. Enjoy yourself; forget your cares; do not worry.

    Life is not all bread and butter. It is not eat, drink and be merry. It is much more.

    1995, V. R. Taneja, Educational Thought And Practice, →ISBN, page 28
    3 more examples

    And if you do not put the motto "Eat, drink, and be merry," above your dining-room door, fix it in your mind, and put it into practice. Laugh, talk, and crack jokes at the table, and thereby heal an injured body.

    1879, “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry”, in University Chronicle, volume 10, page 101

    He says his motto is ' Let us eat, drink, and be merry.' Just so, young man : my motto is exactly the same as yours, ' Let us eat, drink, and be merry.'

    1880, William Young Fullerton, Waymarks for wanderers: 5 addresses, page 122

    Our days here were spent visiting beaches and resting under huge parasols to hide from the sun and eat, drink and be merry while occasionally joining the children to bathe in the warm, grey sea.

    2015, Adrian Breeden, Time Grooves and Travel Records, →ISBN, page 556

Origin

A reference to Ecclesiastes 8:15: "Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry".

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

eat, drink and be merry. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eat%2C%20drink%20and%20be%20merry

MLA

“eat, drink and be merry.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eat%2C%20drink%20and%20be%20merry. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “eat, drink and be merry,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eat%2C%20drink%20and%20be%20merry.

Source: eat, drink and be merry on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.