hollow leg

English

WOTD – 15 June 2010

Humorously suggesting a further place where a person's body might store food when the stomach filled up. Compare fill one's boots.

hollow leg (plural hollow legs)

Capacity to eat large quantities.
- 1998, Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees, page 228:
  When I was young and growing a lot, and Mama couldn't feed me enough, she used to say I had a hollow leg.
- 1999, Rita Mae Brown, Six of One‎, page 137:
  Fannie Jump Creighton had a hollow leg, as the saying goes, and Idabelle was so fat, if she tripped coming up the hill she'd roll all the way to the bottom.
- 2006, Amanda Boyden, Pretty Little Dirty, page 268:
  My brother, who had recently overtaken me in height and then racked up another six inches, ate to fill his hollow leg. My father did better than expected, too, eating two pieces of pie with our amaretto-flavored whipped cream.
Ability or tendency to drink large quantities of alcohol.
- 1985, Megan Moran, Lost Years: Confessions of a Woman Alcoholic, page 209:
  I didn't want his unhappiness or his pain, or his personality changes, but I wanted to drink as much, as often. I certainly wanted his hollow leg.
- 2006, Steven Sidor, Bone Factory‎, page 89:
  Where was Uncle? Gone for a stiff one? Again? His hollow leg, you know. Ducking in the john to throw up on his loafers? Probably that. What did he have tonight? Anything good?

capacity to eat large quantities

French: avoir une faim de loup (fr), avoir la fringale, avoir une dent creuse, être un gargantua

ability or tendency to drink large quantities of alcohol

French: avoir la dalle en pente, avoir le bec salé (fr), être un boit-sans-soif, être un poivrot, être une éponge, boire comme un trou (fr), boire comme un polonais
German: Trinkfestigkeit (de) f, trinkfest (adjective)