Meaning
Something that gives a person deep satisfaction, support or encouragement - what they positively thrive on, as in 'criticism is meat and drink to him'. A secondary strand, common in British sports commentary, describes something routine and easy to handle. Now chiefly British. Mostly neutral with a wry, appreciative edge; often said of someone's unusual appetite for conflict or hard work. Regional use: British English.
Origin
The phrase rests on the old sense of 'meat' as food in general - Old English mete - which survives in 'sweetmeat'. 'Meat and drink' named literal sustenance through the Middle Ages, and the figurative use 'to be meat and drink to' someone, often of spiritual nourishment, is recorded from 1533 in the Oxford English Dictionary. Shakespeare helped fix it in the language: Touchstone's 'It is meat and drink to me' appears in As You Like It (c. 1600), with a related use in Twelfth Night. From 'what sustains me' it was a short step to the modern sense of 'what gives me great pleasure' and, in British commentary, 'what I handle easily'.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- be meat and drink to
- be meat and drink to someone
- meat and drink for someone
- meat and drink to me
Usage Examples
- Late-night improvisation is meat and drink to the members of that jazz trio.
- Budget spreadsheets and audit trails are meat and drink to our finance officer.
- Cross-examination of that ferocity is meat and drink to a barrister of her experience.