cocktail flu en · NOUN
Etymology
From cocktail + flu.
Meanings
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(colloquial, uncountable) A hangover or other negative symptoms experienced the day after ingesting alcohol.
There were, of course, the hangovers. Mornings we’d wake up late, stumble to Veselka or Café Orlin in the East Village for something greasy and restorative, then trundle home to collapse on the sofa, felled by the cocktail flu, giving us permission to watch basketball doubleheaders and doze all day in each other’s arms, getting up only to be ill.
2012, “A Glass Half Empty”, from “Modern Love” in The New York Times by Elissa Schappell, 2012-08-17