On a traditional square-rigger there were four sheets to each sail to properly trim it: one on each end of the spar, and one at each lower corner of the sail. Three sheets to the wind literally means you have lost your hold on three of them, and they are blowing randomly in the wind, hence with only one left you have very little ability to set your sail; you are out of control. A fitting idiom for being rip-roaring drunk.

👍🏻

beautiful idiom! Keep it up!

wonderful explanation.

I will be three sheets to the wind tonight!

What a euphemism! I've heard sloshed, pissed, or sh**faced, but this is so civilized.

from another source: This expression is used to describe someone who is drunk to the point of being unable to stand up straight. The ‘sheets’ here refer to the sails of a windmill rather than bed linen. Windmill operators used to add or remove the number of sails according to the strength of the wind. One basic rule that they had to follow was to always keep an even number of sails - either two or four - opposite each other in order to keep the windmill balanced and steady. If they ever had three sheets, the windmill became unstable and extremely wobbly, swaying from side to side very much like someone who has enjoyed a little too much alcohol!

What it really means?

@milaim

7 жыл бұрын

What does it mean? intoxicated, inebriated, drunken, befuddled, incapable, tipsy, the worse for drink, under the influence, maudlin; blind drunk, dead drunk, rolling drunk, roaring drunk, (as) drunk as a lord, (as) drunk as a skunk; sottish, tippling, toping, gin-soaked; informal: tight, merry, the worse for wear, woozy, pie-eyed, two/three sheets to the wind, under the table, plastered, smashed, wrecked, sloshed, soused, well oiled, sozzled, blotto, blitzed, canned, stewed, pickled, tanked (up), soaked, bombed, hammered, blasted, off one's face, out of/off one's head, out of one's skull, wasted, wired, in one's cups, reeling, cock-eyed, zonked, guttered, fuddled, stinko, ratted; legless, steaming, bevvied, paralytic, Brahms and Liszt, half cut, out of it, having had a skinful, bladdered, trolleyed, well away, squiffy, tiddly, out of one's box, having had one over the eight, cut, steamed, mullered, slaughtered, lashed; fou; loaded, trashed, crock, juiced, sauced, squiffed, swacked, strung out, liquored up, out of one's gourd, in the bag, zoned, blitzed, ripped; full; hickered, shot; grogged up, as full as a goog, inked; munted; lekker; stoned, lit up, as tight as a tick; half seas over, pixilated; monged, monged out; archaic: sotted, besotted, foxed, screwed; rare: crapulent, crapulous, inebriate, bibulous, ebrious, ebriose, ebriate euphemistic: tired and emotional; vulgar slang: pissed, as pissed as a newt/fart, rat-arsed, arseholed;

@reginacampbell4618

9 ай бұрын

Also known as…..Tipsy!

@reginacampbell4618

9 ай бұрын

Oh! This word has been mentioned!

Where are you?

It's a waste of time as there's no clear explanation of the idiom.