Dictionary

drunk tank en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (slang) A cell where people who have been arrested for public drunkenness are detained until they are sober.
   • It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank / An old man said to me, “Won't see another one” 1987, Shane MacGowan, Jem Finer, “Fairytale of New York”, in If I Should Fall from Grace with God, performed by The Pogues ft. Kirsty MacColl:
   • [I]f you're honest enough you might end up in the drunk-tank 15 or 20 times and lose a few jobs and a wife or 2 or maybe slug somebody in the streets and sleep on a park bench now and then […]. 1962, Charles Bukowski, “letter”, in On Writing, Canongate, published 2016, page 57:

Forms

Translations (22)

ru вытрезви́тель (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · mk ќелија за пијани (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · da detention (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · et kainer (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · et kainestusmaja (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · fi juoppoputka (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · rue тверези́лня (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · cs záchytka (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · cs alkoholka (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · cmn 酒牢 (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · uk витвере́зник (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · de Ausnüchterungszelle (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · pl izba wytrzeźwień (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · sv tillnyktringscell (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · cv урӑлтаркӑч (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · pl wytrzeźwiałka (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · fr cellule de dégrisement (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · fr salle de dégrisement (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · fi putka (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · sv fyllecell (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · nl dronkemanscel (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober) · lv atskurbtuve (cell where drunken people are detained until they are sober)