#90: 27 Brussels words for drinking and getting drunk
Make mine a beeke
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Brussels, just like the Inuit and their words for snow, or the Irish and their descriptions of rain, has an extensive vocabulary for the art of drinking, drinks measures, drunks, and getting drunk.
Bruxellois, or Brussels, or Brusseleir, or Marols, is a fast-disappearing regional argot the ancestral home of which - and final redoubt - is centred in the inner city working class neighbourhood of the Marollen. It’s a language that reflects the cultural and linguistic shifts experienced by Brussels over the past 500 years.
Brusseleir is originally a Brabantian-Dutch dialect and as a result it’s full of Flemish(ish) words, like maske (girl). There’s also a healthy dose of Hispanic influence thanks to the centuries of Spanish Hapsburg rule when Brussels was the imperial capital of a pan-European empire - you can see this in a word like goulaf (the local Brussels word for gourmand, from the Spanish word gula, gluttony), or in the fact that the street where the old prison used to be - Rue de l’Amigo - is a confusion by the Spanish of the Brabantian word for prison (vrunt) with the word for friend (vriend).
And then there’s the impact of the verfransing (Frenchification) of this formerly Dutch-speaking city imposed on the country by its Francophone elites in the years after Belgian independence in 1831.
There are organisations that work to keep the language alive, and each year the non-profit Be.Brusseleir presents a “Brusseleirs van 't joêr” award to the best representative of the city. But it is a dying language, as native speakers either age out of the population or move outside Brussels in their retirement years.
We may not be able to restore the language to its former glory, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still use it. So this weekend, instead of going to the pub drop into your local Stameneie. Not for a bière or a pintje, for a quiet Beeke. And if you stick around and have enough, you might even find yourself getting not drunk but a maybe a little bit Zat.
27 Brussels words for drinking and getting drunk
Beeke (noun): small beer
Boemele (verb): to get drunk regularly
Druuge leiver (noun): drunk, drinker (literally, dry liver)
Flotchesbee (noun): wartime beer, of very low ABV
Geneivelist (noun): a person who likes to drink jenever, a drunk
Halfke (noun): a half glass of beer, or a Half en Half - a drink composed of 1 part Faro and 1 part Lambic
Kousenband (noun): the space between the top of a beer and the edge of the glass, e.g. “don’t give me a kousenband.” (literally, garter)
Kwak (noun): a glass of liqueur
Lappe (verb): to take a bad turn, e.g. op de lappe goên, to go on a drunken binge
Meeklapitte (noun): drunken woman
Pizewiss (noun): light beer
Pottezoeiper (noun): drinker, someone who drinks their pot (glass) empty
Scheut (noun): a glass containing approximately 100ml
Schnik (noun): alcohol
Stameneie (noun): estaminet, cafe
Strondzat (adjective): dead-drunk, literally shit-drunk
Teuttere (verb): to indulge in the pleasure of drinking beer
Teuttereir (noun): someone who enjoys drinking a good beer, see also teuttere
Tonneklinker (noun): a drunk (literally, a barrel-leaner)
Tracteire (verb): to stand a round
Wallebak (noun): drunk
Zat (adjective): drunk, see also: strondzat, zatlap, zattecul, zatterik)
Zatlap (noun): drunk
Zattecul (noun): drunk
Zatterik (noun): drunk
Zoeipe (verb): to drink, to get drunk
Zoeiper (noun): a drinker (see also: pottezoeiper, zoeipe)
This is both upsetting and disappointing. A second migraine in a week - having gone almost the whole of January and February without an attack - has torpedoed new content. So while I’m curled up in a dark room under a blanket, we’ve dipped back into the BBC (no, not that one) archive again. Here’s hoping next week I’ll have shook off my neurological issues and be back up and running. Until then - santeï!
In putting together this list I was indebted to the Dictionnaire du Dialecte Bruxellois by Louis Quievreux.