all mops and brooms
A dated British slang expression meaning intoxicated or drunk.
Definitions
A dated British slang expression meaning intoxicated or drunk. The image is evocative if slightly opaque — someone so dishevelled or uncoordinated they seem like a bundle of mops and brooms, all tangled and unsteady. It belongs to an older British tradition of colourful, indirect drunk-synonyms (three sheets to the wind, half-cut, three sheets in the wind). Rarely used today outside historical fiction or folk idiom enthusiasts, but a fun example of how creative English slang for drunkenness can be.
By the time they rolled out of the pub, the whole lot of them were all mops and brooms.
Comments
(slang) intoxicated; drunk.
"all mops and brooms" means: intoxicated; drunk.. This is informal slang, common in casual speech, texting and social media, but not appropriate for school work, applications or professional settings. There is no real cause for concern in itself; it is everyday peer vocabulary. If your child uses it, a light comment about audience and register is usually enough — no need to escalate. Context, more than the word, tells you whether to follow up.
"all mops and brooms" means: intoxicated; drunk.. Register: informal slang, fine in casual conversation, texting and social media but not in academic essays, business writing or formal speech. A common non-native mistake is to use the word in the wrong register, or to assume one fixed meaning when it is actually polysemous; always check the surrounding register and the audience before producing it yourself. In formal writing, prefer a neutral synonym or a short descriptive phrase, and use this word only when you have heard or read it being used naturally in a comparable context.
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Other words near "all mops and brooms" (A)
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