Facetiously used for River. See also BIG DRINK.
1833. Shut pan, and sing dumb, or I’ll throw you into the drink.—J. K. Paulding, ‘The Banks of the Ohio,’ i. 213 (Lond.).
1836. If I had my way, I would capsize your confounded imposition-shops [toll-houses] into the drink.—Boston Pearl, March 12.
1846. The boat struck a snag, and made a lurch, throwing me about six feet in the drink.—‘A Catfish Story,’ St. Louis Reveille, n.d.
1847. About evenin’ I got my small dug-out, and fixin’ my rifle carefully in the fore eend, and stickin’ my knife in the edge whar it would be handy, I jest paddled over the drink.—Robb, ‘Streaks of Squatter Life,’ &c., p. 105 (Phila.).
1851. The fust thing I know’d I went kerswash into the drink!—‘Polly Peablossom’s Wedding,’ &c., p. 152.
1853. Reckon we’d best be a-barkin’ on the back track, for dern my skin ef the ‘drink’ aint up and a-coming like a quarter horse.—S. A. Hammett (‘Philip Paxton’), ‘A Stray Yankee in Texas,’ p. 161.
1857. You’d better scull your dug-out over the drink again, and go to splittin’ oven wood.—J. G. Holland, ‘The Bay-Path,’ p. 137.
