verb. (colloquial).—To drink brandy: cf. TO BEER, TO WINE, etc.

1

  c. 1796.  WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’), Works, 138.

        He surely had been BRANDYING it, or beering:
That is, in plainer English, he was drunk.

2

  ALL BRANDY, adv. phr. (common).—A1; the pure QUILL (q.v.), O.K. (q.v.).

3

  BRANDY IS LATIN FOR GOOSE, phr. (old).—See quots.

4

  1710.  SWIFT, Polite Conversation, ii. Lord. Sm. Well, but after all, Tom, can you tell me what’s Latin for a goose? Nev. O my lord, I know that; why, BRANDY IS LATIN FOR A GOOSE, and Tace is Latin for a candle.

5

  1868.  BREWER, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, s.v. BRANDY IS LATIN FOR GOOSE (or fish), this punning vulgarism appears first in Swift’s Polite Conversation: the pun is on the word answer. Anser is the Latin for goose, which brandy follows as surely and quickly as an answer follows a question.

6

  1881.  DAVIES, A Supplementary English Glossary, s.v. BRANDY IS LATIN FOR A GOOSE, probably because people took a dram after eating goose. There may be a catch in this way. ‘What is the Latin for a goose?’ ‘Ans(w)er, Brandy’; anser being the Latin word for goose.

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