Druncen

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Archaic spelling of drunken, describing a person who is intoxicated by alcohol or who is marked by overindulgence in it
2. An old form of the adjective meaning affected by alcohol to the point of impaired judgment or stumbling behavior
3. Describing someone who has consumed too much liquor, or an act or state that results from such heavy drinking

Etymology: Old English "druncen" is the past participle of "drincan," "to drink," so it simply means "having drunk," and in use it meant "drunk" in the sense of intoxicated. Its ancestry is ordinary: the verb descends from a Germanic root shared with German "trinken," and the participle was formed in the regular way, with the vowel of "drink" changed to "u" and a "-en" ending, the same pattern that gives "drunk" and "drunken" today. The word is also a useful reminder of how English has trimmed its endings over time. In Old English "druncen" could be used both as a verb form and as an adjective, and the adjectival use survived while the plain verb form "drunk" gradually took over. "Drunken" remains in use in phrases like "a drunken sailor" and "drunken brawl," where it sits before a noun and sounds more old-fashioned than the predicate "drunk."