Meaning
Enjoy food, drink, and present pleasures, sometimes because the future is uncertain. Can celebrate present enjoyment or criticize short-sighted self-indulgence; context decides. Regional use: Biblical English; now widespread.
Origin
The expression combines biblical passages rather than belonging to one uniquely worded English verse. Ecclesiastes commends eating and drinking with gladness, while Luke 12:19 has a rich man tell himself to eat, drink, and make merry. The Wycliffe Bible renders these ideas in Middle English, including a close eat, drink, and make feast form. Later translations and quotation compressed them into the familiar triad. Context can make it either cheerful or cautionary.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- Let us eat, drink and be merry
Usage Examples
- The work is finished, so let us eat, drink and be merry.
- Their attitude was to eat, drink and be merry, leaving no savings for repairs.
- For one evening, the exhausted crew decided to eat, drink and be merry.