hot coppers

hot coppers

English

Noun

hot coppers pl (plural only)

1. (obsolete) A hangover.
   • 1892, Harold Brodrick, The Son of Man (volume 2, page 40)

     […] gets drunk, he wakes up in the morning with a bad headache or with what, in the colonies, are called "hot coppers."

   • 1901, William Henley, Sandwich Man:

     The drunkard’s mouth a-wash for something drinkable,
     The drunkard’s eye alert for casual toppers,
     The drunkard’s neck stooped to a lot scarce thinkable,
     A living, crawling blazoning of Hot-Coppers […]

   • 1913, Wine and Spirit News and Australian Vigneron (volume 24, page 206)

     In those days the doctor was often half-seas over when he attended his drunken patient; the parson was often drunk in the pulpit; judge, counsel and attorneys pursued their avocation in court in a prevailing atmosphere of hot coppers.