six o'clock swill

British

noun

informal a period of heavy drinking, esp during the years when hotels had to close their bars at 6.00 p.m

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Similar regulation of closing times throughout the 20th century led to the Australian phenomenon known as the “six o’clock swill.”

From Slate

Instead of civilized consumption in the early evening as the campaigners envisioned, however, the measure spawned a mad rush known as the six o’clock swill, when men downed as many beers as possible in a rapid-fire drinking spree before the last call.

From New York Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023