binge
/bɪnd͡ʒ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.60 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A short period of excessive consumption, especially of food, alcohol, narcotics, etc.
noun
A compressed period of an activity done in excess, such as watching a television show.
verb
To engage in a short period of excessive consumption, especially of excessive alcohol or media consumption.
Intransitive verb; Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "I binged on ice cream."
- "She'll binge an entire series on the weekend."
- "I'm totally happy to binge when I'm not busy."
- "It’s nice to think that our bubble baths and personal time might have a larger political purpose (“Um, Foucault! I’m not just bingeing Netflix – I’m engaging in Platonic political philosophy in order to better serve others!”), but more often than not, our acts of self-care are simply acts of privilege."
- "([Jesse] Armstrong, by his own admission, binged episodes of the All-In podcast, which features prominent investors and Trump’s AI/crypto czar David Sacks.)"
Etymology
From Leicestershire and Northamptonshire dialect, binge (“to drink deeply", also "to soak, steep, drench", specifically "to swell a leaky wooden vessel by filling it with or plunging it into water”), of unknown origin. Possibly inherited from Middle English *bengen, from Old English *benġan, from Proto-West Germanic *bangijan (“to press”), possibly related to *bangōn (“to bang”) and thus potentially cognate with Bavarian aufbenga (“to raise for processing”), Middle Low German bengen (“to evacuate, to force birth”, German Low German bängen, bengen, bingen), and possibly Middle Scots beynge, bynge (“to cringe”, Scots beenge), though the last could be a blend of bow (“to bow”) + crenge (“to cringe”). However, compare dialectal English beam and Scots beam, beene (“to cure leakage in a tub or barrel by soaking, thereby causing the wood to swell”), though these could be specialised developments of Old English bēam (“wood”), with variants in /n/ being due to influence from this word or assimilation before syncopated forms of the past tense suffix.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *bangijan