sober

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (1)  · 
Poe, it appears, found a rime donnéin "sober" to rhyme with

View all »
Definitions (30)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (7)

  1. adjective Habitually abstemious in the use of alcoholic liquors or drugs; temperate.
  2. adjective Not intoxicated or affected by the use of drugs.
  3. adjective Plain or subdued: sober attire.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (13)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (7)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples

  • I am sober, and honest, and have no followers, and although I used to be out at nights and play at the alehouse, I have now left it off. —  George Selwyn His Letters and His Life
  • Poe, it appears, found a rime donnéin "sober" to rhyme with —  VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XI No 2
  • A passing traveller on horseback, or in a dray, raised clouds of it, which drifted over everything and covered everything with a light film, but yet did not drive the inhabitants into the Carrier's Rest, for the Birralong people were sober, as they usually are in bush townships--sober, that is, as things are understood in the Southern Land of sunshine and freedom. —  Colonial Born A tale of the Queensland bush
  • To be sober, attentive to his duty, honest, obliging and cleanly, are the qualifications necessary to fit him for my purposes. — —  George Washington Farmer
  • In Germany a man may think he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matter closely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truth he is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comfort himself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of this mess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought will quickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than any woman or cow in the land. " —  VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol X No 2
 

Tags

sober hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

Sober has been looked up 485 times, favorited once, listed 7 times, and commented on once.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

thoughtful ·  serious ·  careful ·  quiet ·  respectable ·  manly ·  amiable ·  pious
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old French sobre, from Latin sōbrius; see s(w)e- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English sober, sobur, sobre, from Old French (and F.) sobre = Spanish Portuguese Italian sobrio, from Latin sobrius, sober, from so-, a variant of se-, apart, used privatively, + ebrius, drunken: see ebrious, ebriety. The same prefix occurs in L. socors, without heart, solvere, loose (see solve).
  2. from Middle English soberen, from Late Latin sobriare, make sober, from Latin sobrius, sober: see sober, adjective
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/ˈsoʊbər/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a week.

Recent Lookups

predicate · As · juices · inhalation · cognisance

Recent Favorites

supine · doxastic · bissextile day · airship · cloud-shadows

Recent Pronunciations

milosrdenstvi · lichen-covered · futon · sagacity · monoragngocious