Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
Adam's ale

Adam's ale

9.9
Fresh drinking water said in a funny or old-fashioned way
  • noun
  • /ˈædəmz eɪl/
  • Archaic
translation icon : agua
  • After a long jog, all he wanted was a glass of Adam's ale to quench his thirst.

Examples

  • We toasted the hike's success with pure Adam's ale from the mountain spring.

  • Would you like some Adam's ale?

  • Some old writers would praise Adam's ale instead of wine or beer.

  • I always drink Adam's ale with my meals.

  • After a long jog, all he wanted was a glass of Adam's ale to quench his thirst.

  • Some old writers would praise Adam's ale instead of wine or beer.

  • We toasted the hike's success with pure Adam's ale from the mountain spring.

Synonyms

spring water
vsAdam's ale
9 1.0

Water that comes from under the ground and is safe to drink

is a humorous poetic name for ordinary drinking water in general

Surface Forms

Adam's ale singular
Adam's ales plural

Morphology

Adam's + ale

The meaning 'water' is not transparently compositional from 'Adam's' (a biblical name) + 'ale' (a type of beer); knowing those words would likely suggest a possessive beer, not drinking water. Understanding that 'Adam's ale' humorously/archaically means water requires cultural or historical knowledge (that Adam had only water), so a B1 learner who only knows the constituents would not predict the idiomatic sense.

Etymology

The noun Adam's ale may come from a simple joke: Adam's points to the first man in the Bible and ale was an old word for a drink. People imagined Adam's drink was plain water, so today Adam's ale means 'water'.