kill-devil
Synonym of rum, an alcoholic beverage distilled from sugarcane, similar spirits.
Noun
- Synonym of rum, an alcoholic beverage distilled from sugarcane, similar spirits.
- ... I went aboard the Fellowship of 100 and 70 Tuns a Flemish bottom, the Master George Luxon of Bittiford in Devonshire, several of my friends came to bid me farewell, among the rest Captain Thomas Wannerton who drank...
- ...the chiefe fudling they make in the Island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Devill, and this is made of suggar canes distilled, a hott, hellish and terrible liquor. - c. 1651, "A Briefe Description of the Island of...
- KILL DEVIL. New ſtill-burnt rum. - 1788, Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd edition:
Synonyms: rum
Origin
From kill + devil.