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Definition of "alcoholism" []

  • A disorder characterized by the excessive consumption of and dependence on alcoholic beverages, leading to physical and psychological harm and impaired social and vocational functioning. Also called alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "alcoholism" in a sentence
  • "My twenty-year career in alcoholism is a clichéd bore, but sober for most of sixteen years, I can live more intensely the ever-sordid hunger for booze that marks all classic noir."
  • "The term alcoholism is understood to include all the changes that may occur in the human organism after the ingestion of any form of alcohol."
  • "Professor Pearson attaches no strict meaning to the term alcoholism, by which he means anything from what the word really means down to a general suspicion that the parents were drinking more than was good for themselves or their home; and finally that in studying the influence of alcohol upon offspring Professor Pearson has omitted to enquire in a single case whether the alcoholism or the offspring came first."