tippler
noun, informal

- someone who often drinks alcohol, typically habitually but not necessarily to excess.

- a person who tipples intoxicating liquor; one who drinks alcoholic beverages regularly, with an implication of fondness for drink rather than outright drunkenness.

- especially British English: someone who drinks alcohol regularly. The word carries a slightly affectionate, even indulgent tone — it describes a habit, not necessarily a problem.

Cambridge Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions

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WORD ORIGIN

The story of tippler runs in the opposite direction to what you might expect. The word did not begin with drinking — it began with selling.

The earliest recorded form, tipler, appears in English records from the late 14th century (mid-13th century as a surname), where it meant an alehouse keeper or seller of alcoholic liquors — someone who ran a tippling house, the medieval equivalent of a bar. These establishments were known as tippling houses by the 1540s.

The root verb tipple — meaning to sell liquor by retail — appears around 1500 and is of disputed origin. One strong theory connects it to a Norwegian dialect word, tipla, meaning "to drink slowly or in small quantities." Another links it to the Germanic tip (to tilt or overturn), as in the act of tilting a cask or bottle to pour. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that because tippler as a noun predates tipple as a verb in the written record, the verb may actually be a back-formation from the noun — the word worked backwards.

By the 1570s, tippler had shifted its meaning: no longer the person behind the counter, but the person in front of it. The seller became the drinker. The word has retained that sense ever since — with the useful implication that the person enjoys a drink regularly, but retains enough composure to remain sociable about it.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

bacchanalian, barfly, barroom regular, be fond of a drink, be partial to a tipple, bibber, booze hound, boozer, dedicated drinker, dipsomaniac, drain the bottle, drinking companion, drunkard, elbow-bender, enjoy/fond of a drop (a nightcap, a snifter), gin-soaked, guzzler, habitué of the pub, hard drinker, have a weakness for the bottle, heavy drinker, hit the bottle, hophead, imbiber, inebriate, juicer, likes to wet his whistle, lush, maltworm (archaic), not averse to a drink, one who likes a tipple, one who never refuses a round, one who takes a drop, on the sauce, partial to a tipple, problem drinker, pub regular, quaffer, rummy, soak, social drinker, soaker, sot, souse, sponge, TIPPLER, tosspot, wine bibber, wino

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Oscar Wilde, a serious TIPPLER, famously said: ‘Work is the curse of the drinking classes’. “ 

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