World Wide Words logo

MULLERED

[Q] From Richard Bolingbroke: “Please can you tell me what mullered means and how old it is. I have only heard it in the last few months. Some people use it in engineering to mean damaged, but it seems to mean drunk too.”

[A] It’s a relatively recent British slang term, so far as I know, certainly only dating from the nineties. I’ve not come across it in the sense of “damaged”, but only that of “intoxicated”, either by drink or drugs. It has been said to be a variant form of the older word mulled, with the same meaning, which presumably derives from the sense of a drink that’s has been made into a hot spicy concoction.

World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2008. All rights reserved. Contact the author if you want to reproduce this piece, but first see our advice page, which also has notes about linking. Your comments and corrections are welcome.

Page created 9 Jan 1999
New and updated pages
Most visited pages
Some random picks