in one's cups

Definitions

Drunk; in the act of consuming alcohol liberally.

idiomatic

Examples

“[T]he natives were an honest, social race⟳ of jolly roysterers, who had no objection to a drinking bout, and were very merry in their cups.”

“They grew only the more sober in their cups; there was no confused babble nor boisterous laughter. They sucked in the joyous fire of the decanters and kept it smouldering in their inmost recesses.”

“[H]ere he gambled, there he drank; and in his cups every virtue dissolved.”

“The woman on the other hand is in her cups swigging from one wine glass while another stands at her elbow.”

CEFR level