Also, three sheets in the wind. Drunk, inebriated, as in After six beers he's three sheets to the wind. This expression is generally thought to refer to the sheet—that is, a rope or chain—that holds one or both lower corners of a sail. If the sheet is allowed to go slack in the wind, the sail flaps about and the boat is tossed about much as a drunk staggers.
Having three sheets loose would presumably make the situation all the worse. Another explanation holds that with two or four sheets to the wind the boat is balanced, whereas with three it is not. New Word List Word List. Hidden category: Requests for cleanup in English entries. Namespaces Entry Discussion. Views Read Edit History.
That leads us to think that the phrase may be of American origin. However, Asbury was English, born in West Bromwich a short walk from where I was born, as it happens and travelled to America when he was in his mid twenties. Whether he took the phrase with him from the English Black County or heard it or indeed coined it in the US, we can't be certain.
Robert Louis Stevenson was as instrumental in inventing the imagery of 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' piracy as his countryman Sir Walter Scott was in inventing the tartan and shortbread 'Bonnie Scotland'. Stevenson used the 'tipsy' version of the phrase in Treasure Island , - the book that gave us 'X marks the spot', 'shiver me timbers' and the archetypal one-legged, parrot-carrying pirate, Long John Silver.
Filters 0. Origin of three-sheets-to-the-wind. Derived from sailing ships. The ' sheet ' in the phrase uses the nautical meaning of a rope that controls the trim of sail.
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