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Glite Dictionary
to go on a bender

to go on a bender

3 9.4
To drink too much alcohol for several days
  • phrasal verb
  • Informal
translation icon : embriagarse
  • Feeling overwhelmed with stress, he chose to go on a bender and forget his troubles for a while.

Examples

  • Finally, I could not stand this feeling anymore and went on a bender after a year without a drink.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • He went on a bender and we ain't heard or seen him for weeks.

    Nickelodeon (1976)

  • How often do you guys go on a bender like this?

    Air America (1990)

  • I went on a bender and I ended up in the back of this hotel with a baby Jojo in my arms.

    Los Angeles (2021)

  • I got depressed after Sonny and Ava and I went on a bender.

    Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001)

  • Back at the farm, Travis and Clete waited long enough to get disgusted, then figured Boo went on a bender.

    The Grave (1996)

  • When I was working with him, if there was something that he didn't want to do, the Oscars, the Olympics, something that people might actually get a tiny twinge of pleasure from, the night before, he would go on a bender.

    Morning Glory (2010)

  • When Andrew finally gets wise to the fact that his wife's compass is pointing in some other direction, he deals with the crisis in the mature Irish way: he blows a gasket, disappears to Ireland, and goes on a bender.

    Blog text (6)

  • After losing his job, he decided to go on a bender that lasted nearly a week.

  • She decided to go on a bender last summer, drinking heavily every night for days.

Synonyms

to tank
vsto go on a bender
  • Slang
11 8.8

To drink a lot of alcohol quickly

means a prolonged several day episode of excessive drinking not a quick bout
to booze
vsto go on a bender
  • Informal
5 8.4

To drink a lot of alcohol

describes an extended multi day episode of excessive drinking rather than casual heavy drinking
to hit the bottle
vsto go on a bender
  • Informal
3 9.4

Start drinking a lot of alcohol to cope with problems

is an extended multi day episode of excessive drinking rather than just starting

Antonyms

to sober up
33 4.6

To stop being drunk and feel normal again

to abstain
18 5.0

To choose not to take something, often for health or religious reasons

How Excessive

to go on a bender
  • Informal
3 9.4
drink
225 6.6
drunkenness
20 4.4
binge
53 5.6

Surface Forms

go on a bender infinitive
going on a bender present participle
goes on a bender third person singular
went on a bender past
gone on a bender past participle

Morphology

go + on + a + bender

The meaning is directly compositional: 'go on' signals entering or undertaking a period, 'a' is the article, and 'bender' denotes a multi-day episode of heavy drinking. The construction follows the common 'go on a + noun' pattern (e.g., 'go on a trip'), so if a learner already knows the noun 'bender' the overall meaning is immediately derivable, though note 'bender' is informal/slang.

Etymology

The idiom go on a bender may come from the picture of someone bending their elbow again and again to drink at a bar, so the word bender came to mean a long drinking spree. That's why go on a bender means 'to drink too much for a period of time'.