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  1. poteen love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Unlawfully distilled Irish whiskey.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Whisky made in Ireland, especially that which is illicitly distilled, sometimes very strong.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Ireland Illegally produced Irish whiskey; moonshine.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Whisky; especially whisky distilled in a small way privately or illicitly by the Irish peasantry.
  2. n. especially, whisky illicitly distilled by the Irish peasantry.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. unlawfully distilled Irish whiskey

Etymologies

  1. From Irish poitín ("little pot"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Irish Gaelic poitín, small pot, poteen, from pota, pot, from English pot1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “On behalf of my client, Mrs. Fennell, I wish to impress upon the Bench the gravity of the offence with which the accused Richard Fennell is charged, namely, drunkenness from excessive use of an illegal intoxicant known as poteen, house-breaking, terrorizing and almost paralyzing with fear his highly strung and sensitive wife, and adding insult to injury in resisting arrest by his Majesty's guardian of law and order,”

    Duty, and other Irish Comedies

  • “The only case before us to-day is one of house-breaking, drunkenness from excessive use of poteen, which is an illegal drink, and resisting arrest by the police.”

    Duty, and other Irish Comedies

  • “Before going at the piles of splintered remains with wooden mallets, Mick and Mairtin get juiced on a potent Irish moonshine called poteen and fiddle with the unearthed bits.”

    Dallas Observer | Complete Issue

  • “No vile new-fangled heresies, such as crushed mint, lump ice, shortage of "poteen," found favor in his eyes”

    Recollections and reflections : an auto of half a century and more,

  • “The eradication of 'whisky trading', for example, was used in this way by the Canadian Mounted Police in the 19th century. 91 The elimination of 'poteen' production was used as an excuse by the British for evicting the Irish during the land clearances in the last century. ”

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  • “In a word “poteen” on December 7, 2009 at 9: 51 pm Tony F”

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  • “The brain damaging poteen, the bullying violence, the wife beating, the abuse of children and the bigotry.”

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  • “At the start, Amis announces certain 'general principles' to be followed in creating drinks, all of which can be derived, by natural drinkers 'logic, from the first of them, which holds that' up to a point [i.e. short of offering your guests one of those Balkan plonks marketed as wine, Cyprus sherry, poteen and the like], go for quantity rather than quality '.”

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  • “The priest says "Ah to be sure a dram of poteen would surely hit the spot”

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  • “At the time, the atmosphere in Belfast was like Irish poteen liquor: boiled and fermented, distilled into something potent and unlawful.”

    Double Blind

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equivalents (1)

Other words for ‘poteen’

  1. potheen

hypernyms (3)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. irish whisky
  1. Irish
  1. Irish whiskey

reverse dictionary (3)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. potheen
  1. potsheen
  1. potteen

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. gaelic

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Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘poteen’.

Comments

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  • fbharjo give everyman his dew Mar 18, 2009

  • bilby "'There'll be one good day's work done on the head of the trial,' she said.
    'How so?' asked the sergeant.
    'Dan Canty will make a great brew of poteen while he have all yeer backs turned.'
    'I'll get Dan Canty yet,' replied the sergeant stiffly.
    - Frank O'Connor, 'In The Train'. Sep 6, 2008

  • chained_bear There's a neat little still at the foot of the hill,
    Where the smoke curls up to the sky
    By a whiff of the smell you can plainly tell
    That there's poteen boys close by.
    For it fills the air with a perfume rare
    And betwixt both me and you
    As home we roll, we can drink a bowl
    Or a bucketful of mountain dew.
    --"Mountain Dew," trad. arr. The Pogues

    p.s. I posted the lyrics on the mountain dew page some time ago. I am so completely lazy that instead of checking there first, I posted them here from Wikipedia. So sue me. Oct 23, 2007

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‘poteen’ has been looked up 1828 times, loved by 2 people, added to 16 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 8.