AS DRUNK AS A WHEELBARROW (or AS THE DRUM OF A WHEELBARROW), phr. (old).—Very drunk indeed: see SCREWED (RAY).

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  1675.  COTTON, Burlesque upon Burlesque: or, The Scoffer Scofft, 239.

        Besides, if he such things can do,
When DRUNK AS DRUM, OR WHEELBARROW,
What would not this God of October
Perform, I prithee, when he’s sober?

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  TO GO TO HEAVEN IN A WHEELBARROW, verb. phr. (old).—To go to hell. [In the painted glass at Fairford, Gloucestershire, the devil is represented as wheeling off a scolding wife in a barrow.]

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  d. 1655.  T. ADAMS, Works, I. 144. This oppressor must needs GO TO HEAVEN! what shall hinder him? But it will be, as the by-word is, IN A WHEELBARROW; the fiends, and not the angels, will take hold on him.

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