subs. phr. (old).—A carouse; a friendly gathering; an enjoyable bout at anything.
TO HAVE A GOOD TIME, verb. phr. (old).—To be fortunate or lucky; to enjoy oneself; to make merry. See COCUM.
1598. JONSON, Every Man in his Humour, i. 2. As not ten housewives pewter, again a GOOD TIME, shews more bright to the world than he! [= some festival, ‘when housewives are careful to set out their furniture to the best advantage.’—Note by Whalley, given in Cunningham’s Gifford’s Jonson (1870)].
1863. A. TROLLOPE, Rachel Ray, ii., 6, 109. Eating cake and drinking currant wine, but not having, on the whole, what our American friends call a GOOD TIME of it.
1864. YATES, Broken to Harness, ch. xxxviii. And what have you been doing? Had a GOOD TIME?
1883. BRET HARTE, In the Carquinez Woods, ch. ix. But we must keep it dark until after I marry Nellie, don’t you see? Then we ’ll have a GOOD TIME all round, and I ’ll stand the drinks.
1892. R. L. STEVENSON and L. OSBOURNE, The Wrecker, p. 14. My idea of man’s chief end was to enrich the world with things of beauty, and have a fairly GOOD TIME myself while doing so.
