big drink
An old and mostly dated American slang expression for the ocean — most often the Atlantic, though the Pacific works too — used with ironic understatement.
Definitions
An old and mostly dated American slang expression for the ocean — most often the Atlantic, though the Pacific works too — used with ironic understatement. Calling the vast, unforgiving ocean a 'big drink' is a classic example of deadpan American humor, reducing something massive and dangerous to something casual and domestic. The phrase shows up in old Western stories, sea shanties, and the mouths of characters trying to sound unbothered by whatever lies ahead of them.
He'd crossed the big drink twice by the time he was thirty and still insisted he preferred solid ground.
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(dated, slang) The ocean; .
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