potation
/pə(ʊ)ˈteɪʃ(ə)n
/noun archaic or humorous
1An alcoholic drink: lite potations are very American...
- The leader of that Party is put down as a dry sherry man, a potation now associated, if at all, with golf club socials that are likely to be all-white and elderly.
- When the patrons at his restaurant would like to indulge in a decadent potation, they will have to choose between Dom Perignon and Krug.
- Bland is simply a preparation of whey, but owing to the quality of the grass or to the climate becomes here a truly palatable and nourishing potation.
1.1 [mass noun] The action of drinking alcohol: you did rather abstain from potation
1.2 (often potations) A drinking bout: he became somewhat bloated in middle age, and his potations did not improve his appearance...
- Perhaps Shakespeare had particular reason when, in 1598, he had the bibulous Sir John Falstaff complain so bitterly on the subject of ‘thin potations’.
- But, indeed, nature herself seemed to have been his vintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless.
- Shakespeare makes the point that even the other beer-and-whisky drinking northern Europeans are nothing, in the size of their potations, compared with the Englishman.
Derivatives
potatory
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French, from Latin potatio(n-), from potare 'to drink'.