# beer

Pronunciation: say "BEER" US /bɪɚ/, UK /bɪə/

## Noun

1. An alcoholic drink fermented from grain, usually malted barley, and often flavored with hops; also a serving or a particular kind of this drink.
   - Simple: An alcoholic drink made from grain, or a glass, can, or kind of this drink.
   - _Workers shared a round of beer after finishing the harvest._
   - _Beer ferments when yeast turns the sugars in malted barley into alcohol._
2. A drink made from or flavored with roots and other plant parts, such as ginger, sassafras, or spruce, once brewed by fermenting and today usually made as a fizzy soft drink.
   - Simple: A fizzy drink flavored with plants such as ginger or sassafras, sometimes brewed but today usually a soft drink.
   - _Colonial sailors drank spruce beer to help prevent scurvy on long voyages._
   - _The recipe for sassafras beer calls for fermenting the roots with sugar._

## Verb

3. To drink beer, especially in a casual or social setting. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To drink beer, often while relaxing with friends.
   - _The crew beered late into the night after the launch._
   - _On Fridays they like to beer down by the river._
4. To provide a person with beer, serving or handing it to them. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To give or hand beer to someone.
   - _Halfway through the second half, my cousin waved his empty can toward the kitchen and shouted, 'Beer me!'_
   - _Hey, beer me one more time._

## Other meanings

- (noun) A person who is or exists, thought of simply as a being.

## Origin

From Middle English "bere", from Old English "bēor", from Proto-West Germanic "*beuʀ" and Proto-Germanic "*beuzą", possibly going back to a root meaning "brewer's yeast." Some sources instead connect it to monastic Vulgar Latin "*biber" ("a drink"), from Latin "bibere" ("to drink"). It is related to Dutch "bier", German "Bier", and Icelandic "bjór".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/beer (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).