Meaning & use
inebriated
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Meaning
adjectivecomparableformalhumorous
Drunk, so that thinking, speech, and balance are affected by alcohol.
Grammar: Can follow a verb or come before a noun: he was inebriated; an inebriated guest.
Patterns
- become inebriated
- visibly inebriated
Police stopped an inebriated driver near the bridge.
The guests grew increasingly inebriated as the party went on.
He was too inebriated to remember where he had parked.
Word forms
| comparative | more inebriated |
|---|---|
| superlative | most inebriated |
Common combinations
- visibly inebriated
- The man was visibly inebriated and kept swaying.
- heavily inebriated
- A heavily inebriated passenger was asked to leave.
- become inebriated
- Guests can become inebriated quickly on an empty stomach.
- inebriated driver
- The inebriated driver was arrested.
- slightly inebriated
- She was only slightly inebriated, but she called a taxi.
Synonyms and how they differ
- drunk
- Drunk is the plain, common word, while inebriated sounds formal, polite, or mildly humorous.
- intoxicated
- Intoxicated is the standard word in legal and medical contexts and can include drugs, which inebriated usually does not.
- tipsy
- Tipsy means lightly drunk and sounds playful, whereas inebriated suggests a stronger effect.
- wasted
- Wasted is slang and implies being extremely drunk, so it is much more casual.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: inebriated or inedible?
inebriated vs inedible
Inedible means not fit to eat; it sounds a little like inebriated but has nothing to do with alcohol.
Practice
The police report said the man was ___ and could not walk in a straight line.
Choose one answer.
Inebriated means drunk, which explains the walking difficulty. The other words look similar but mean something else.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “inebriated”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.