rum hound
n.— «So for the third time, Wilson checked himself into a private hospital in New York that specialized in drying out “rum hounds,” as he called himself. He knew what to expect: doses of barbiturates, bitter herbs, castor oil and other purgatives, vomiting, tremors and depression. He also knew that just about every hard case like him went back to drinking.The prospect was so dismal he picked up beer for the cab ride.» —“Wilson died sober but thirsty” by David von Drehle Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Ind.) May 9, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...