| Dutch courage | |
| —n | |
| 1. | false courage gained from drinking alcohol |
| 2. | alcoholic drink |
| the offspring of a zebra and a donkey. |
| a chattering or flighty, light-headed person. |
Dutch courage definition
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Dutch courage
False courage acquired by drinking liquor, as in He had a quick drink to give him Dutch courage. This idiom alludes to the reputed heavy drinking of the Dutch, and was first referred to in Edmund Waller's Instructions to a Painter (1665): "The Dutch their wine, and all their brandy lose, Disarm'd of that from which their courage grows."