Meanings
- historicalslanguncountableA drink of half ale, half porter, originally costing fourpence a quart.
At nine o'clock that night Darkey was still consuming four-half, and relating certain adventures by sea which, he averred, had happened to himself.
1893, Arnold Bennett, A Letter Home1 more example
[H]e regarded the whole world as her grave, and the tipsy sergeants in scarlet, the carter crying for a pint of four-half, and even the horses dipping their mild noses to the trough in the courtyard seemed to be defiling it by their happy, simple appetites.
1918 March, Rebecca West [pseudonym; Cicily Isabel Fairfield], chapter IV, in The Return of the Soldier, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., published 1918, →OCLC, pages 96–97
Cite this entry
four-half. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/four-half
“four-half.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/four-half. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “four-half,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/four-half.
Source: four-half on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.