Tom Collins
3
4.6
- noun
- /tɑm ˈkɒlɪnz/
:
Tom Collins
- The blonde, who said her name was Caroline, ordered a Tom Collins from the robot waitress.
Examples
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And one Tom Collins.
Fiction book (2000) -
Did you order the Tom Collins, sir?
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Do you need a Tom Collins?
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Can I have a Tom Collins, please?
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- I'll have a Tom Collins, please.
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- A nice, tall Tom Collins!
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Two Tom Collins.
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Can I have a Tom Collins, please?
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Uncle Mowrey ordered a round of Tom Collins for us all.
Synonyms
256
4.9
A tall cold drink made with gin, lemon juice, and soda water with a lemon slice
How Strong
Surface Forms
Morphology
Tom + collins
This is a proper-name combination: 'Tom' (a name) + 'Collins' (a type of cocktail). A B1 learner who knows 'Collins' as a cocktail would likely infer that 'Tom Collins' is a named variant of that drink, but the exact recipe and conventionalized meaning are lexicalized and not fully predictable from the parts.
Etymology
Tom Collins may come from a joke in the 1800s called the 'Tom Collins' hoax, where people told friends that a man named Tom Collins was saying bad things about them and sent them off to look for him. Bartenders began calling a new tall, fizzy gin drink a Tom Collins, so the name stuck for the cocktail we know today.