vinous

Etymology

From Late Middle English vinous, vinose (“consisting of, containing, or made of wine”), from Latin vīnōsus (“fond of wine; wine-flavoured”), from vīnum (“wine”) + -ōsus (adjective-forming suffix meaning ‘full of, prone to’).

adj

1. Pertaining to or having the characteristics of wine.
   1. Involving the use of wine.
   2. Having the colour of red wine; vinaceous.
      … François' quick eye detected the presence of some very small birds moving among the blossoms. They were at once pronounced to be humming-birds, and of that species known as the "ruby-throats" (Trochilus rolubris), so called, because a flake of a beautiful vinous colour under the throat of the males exhibits, in the sun, all the glancing glories of the ruby. 1853, [Thomas] Mayne Reid, “The Shrike and the Humming-birds”, in The Young Voyageurs, or The Boy Hunters in the North, London: George Routledge and Sons, Limited; New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton and Co., →OCLC, page 268
      Day was breaking, and the sheets of talc in the walls were filled with a vinous colour. 1904, Gustave Flaubert, “Tanith”, in Salammbô: A Romance of Ancient Carthage[…], volume III, Chicago, Ill.: Simon P. Magee, →OCLC, page 99
2. Tending to drink wine excessively.
   Yet fat and vinous old Jack Falstaff, whose portraiture is the happiest hit in all the varied range of English comedy, must be sought for in other scenes. 1869, William Francis Collier, “William Shakspere”, in A History of English Literature, in a Series of Biographical Sketches, London, Edinburgh, New York, N.Y.: T[homas] Nelson and Sons,[…], →OCLC, page 146
   Curiosity induced him to ask the wild-eyed vinous old man if he knew the lady. 1883, Fun, London: Published for the proprietors, →OCLC, page 168, column 1
   Old Simon the Soaker now keeps a rare store / Of Malmsey and Malvoisie / In tub-fuls of hundreds of litres or more, / For a vinous old soul is he—e, / A porous old so—ul is he; … 2 July 1898, “The New Dipsomania”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume CXIV, London: Published at the office, 85, Fleet Street, →OCLC, stanza I, page 309
   It is one of the most trying things about this life, this necessity of laughing uproariously when vinous old men say things that are dirty but not funny; else one is written down as a prig. 25 August 1899, Raymond Asquith, “Letter to H. T. Baker”, in John Jolliffe, editor, Raymond Asquith: Life and Letters, London: Collins, published 1980
   She was found wounded and amnesic by a vinous old farmer who, charitable and eccentric (or just radiantly bonkers), nursed her back to health in some ramshackle barn or outbuilding of his after the local Gendarmerie had investigated, photographed, swept up and hosed down the crash scene. 2016, Christopher Chase Walker, The Visitor, Winchester, Hampshire: Cosmic Egg Books
3. Affected by the drinking of wine.
   Once she had been kissed by a man in wine (the memory recalled Lady Tynewood and the parties she gave) and she had never forgotten the hated smell of that vinous breath. 1927, Edgar Wallace, “The Honeymoon”, in The Man Who Was Nobody, London: Ward, Lock & Co., →OCLC; republished Looe, Cornwall: House of Stratus, 2001, page 110
   Gripped by a vinous pentecost, I launched into speech … 1928, Robert Byron, “Society”, in The Station: Travels to the Holy Mountain of Greece, London: Duckworth, →OCLC; reprinted London, New York, N.Y.: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, I.B. Tauris and Co., 2011, page 125
   It was a moment of bathos and anticlimax; a poor sequel to my smoke-ringed, vinous reverie on American grandeur the previous night. 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir, London: Atlantic Books; republished London: Atlantic Books, 2011, page 254