skunk

Extremely intoxicated from alcohol. Do you remember last night at all? You were as drunk as a skunk! I only meant to stay for one drink, but I wound up getting drunk as a skunk.

proverb Each person should be responsible for their own business, especially that which is unfavorable, undesirable, or unpleasant. It's not your responsibility to help your friend out of his debt—let every man skin his own skunk.

Vigorously or intensely. When information about the president's scandalous affair was leaked, every news outlet in the nation was on it like stink on a monkey. My little brother's been following me around like stink on a pig lately.

Someone or something that is unwelcome or unpleasant. Running into my ex at that important networking event was like encountering a skunk at a garden party.

slang Extremely drunk. We were all too skunk-drunk to notice that Jackson had left the party. Tom was so skunk-drunk by the end of the night that he could barely even speak.

very drunk. (*Also: as ~.) After his fifth cocktail, Michael was as drunk as a lord. Judy bought herself a case of beer and proceeded to get as drunk as a skunk.

Prov. Everyone should do his own job and not interfere with others.; Each person should do his own dirty work. We weren't supposed to help each other with the homework. "Let every man skin his own skunk," the teacher said.

Also, drunk as a fiddler or skunk ; falling-down or roaring drunk . Extremely intoxicated, as in He came home drunk as a lord. The three similes have survived numerous others. The first was considered proverbial by the mid-1600s and presumably alludes to the fact that noblemen drank more than commoners (because they could afford to). The fiddler alludes to the practice of plying musicians with alcohol (sometimes instead of pay), whereas skunk, dating from the early 1900s, was undoubtedly chosen for the rhyme. The most graphic variant alludes to someone too drunk to keep his or her balance, as in He couldn't make it up the stairs; be was falling-down drunk. And roaring drunk, alluding to being extremely noisy as well as intoxicated, was first recorded in 1697. Also see dead drunk.

If someone is as drunk as a skunk or as drunk as a lord, they are very drunk. I'm sorry, honey. It was my fault. I was drunk as a skunk. She was drunk as a lord for seventeen days. She could do nothing.

Extremely intoxicated. The first expression, known since the seventeenth century and considered a proverb by 1651 (“The proverb goes ‘As drunk as a lord,’ ” John Evelyn, A Character of England), is based on the idea that the aristocracy could and did indulge in drunkenness more than commoners did, presumably because they could afford to. The more recent drunk as a skunk, American in origin, undoubtedly became popular on account of its rhyme; it dates from the early 1900s. Both clichés have survived the demise of numerous other similes, among them drunk as an ape (from Chaucer’s time), tinker, fish, goat, owl, emperor, piper, fiddler (because he was plied with alcohol at wakes, fairs, and similar feasts), swine or pig, devil, beggar, blazes, David’s sow (based on an ancient anecdote explained in Francis Grose’s Classical Dictionary, and current from the seventeenth century), and others. See also drink like a fish; tight as a tick.

Extremely drunk. Members of the nobility could afford to keep quantities of wine, beer, and liquor on hand, and as much out of envy as stating a fact, the common folk described anyone, titled or not, who had a load on by that phrase. In these more egalitarian times, “drunk as a skunk” and, less elegantly, “shit-faced drunk” have replaced “drunk as a lord.”