rotgut
nounEtymology From rot + gut.
1
Slang, Usually Raw or poor-quality alcoholic liquor.
- Near-synonym: red-eye
- Then the harpooner carried away a pink flask to be filled in some blind pig, for there were no licensed saloons in that locality. We drank the cheap rotgut out of tumblers.1913 August, Jack London, chapter VI, in John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 48:
1 more example
- His mother, Dorothy, hung around longer, long enough for her to choke on her own vomit. She had that taste—rotgut, the rougher the better.2019 July 16, Colson Whitehead, chapter 10, in The Nickel Boys, Vintage, page 125:
- Synonyms
- rotgut, bug juice, corn liquor, firewater, hooch, moonshine, mountain dew, poteen, white lightning
- Hypernyms
- alcoholic beverage, homebrew