The town drunk (also called a tavern fool) is a stock character, almost always male, who is drunk more often than sober.
The town drunk typically dwells in a small enough town that he is the only conspicuous alcoholic. Larger cities may have more than one, but this term appears to come from around the 17th century; in the stereotype, when a city grows large enough to house a sufficient mass of town drunks, the area where they congregate becomes known as Skid Row.
Read more about Town Drunk: Uses in Fiction, Antecedents
Famous quotes containing the words town and/or drunk:
“There’s a long story, my friend. I never did like the idea of sitting on newspapers. I did it once and all the headlines came off on my white pants. On the level, it actually happened. Nobody bought a paper that day. They just followed me around over town and read the news off the seat of my pants.”
—Robert Riskin (1897–1955)
“Nobody can write the life of a man, but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)