Learn English – drunk and drunken

adjectivesgrammarmeaningparticiplesword-usage

I want to know the difference between word drunk and drunken.

I looked up the dictionary and found that two words have same meaning, someone drinks alcohol too much.

About drunk, it could be interpreted as two meanings, one is meaning of past participle form of verb drink and the other is meaning of adjective (also someone drinks alcohol too much).

Here, I am curious about usage of two adjectives drunk and drunken.

My teacher said

"He was drunken" is ungrammatical, whereas "a drunken driver" and "He
was drunk" are grammatical.

I'm really curious that why he was drunken is not accepted but he was drunk is okay.

Best Answer

We have the adjective drunk which means "inebriated, physically and mentally showing the effects of having consumed too much alcohol".

It is used as a predicate complement:

That man is very drunk. Stop serving him and find him a taxicab.

His car was broadsided by a man driving drunk.

It is used also as an adjective before the noun:

He was broadsided by a drunk driver.

drunken is an older form of the past participle of the verb drink, and it hasn't been used much as past-participle for the last 200 years though it exists alongside drunk as an adjective.

You drunken hooligans, get out of my donut shop now, or I'll call the police!

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