a. Obs. Said of a man in the second of the proverbial four stages of drunkenness, in which he becomes violent and quarrelsome.
The mediæval saying was that wine makes a man successively resemble a sheep, a lion, an ape and a sow. (See Skeat’s note to Chaucer, Manciple’s Prol., 45.)
1592. Nashe, P. Pennilesse, 23 b. The second [kind of drunkard] is Lion drunke, and he flings the pots about the house, calls his Hostesse whore [etc.].
1623. Massinger, Bond-man, III. iii. Nay, if you are Lyon-drunke, I will make one, For lightly euer he that parts the fray, Goes away with the blowes.
a. 1640. Day, Peregr. Schol. (1881), 52. When the lions bloode mates with a furious disposition,… it converts to rage, stabbings, and quarrells; and such we call Lion-Drunk.
