Definition of "drinking-song" [drinking-song]

• A song suited to convivial gatherings, or where toasts are drunk. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "Much the same as though one were to be interrupted for a minute in the midst of one of our church liturgies to hear a drinking-song."
• "A woman rises, as in a tranquil sea the first wave that feels the tempest's breath foams up to announce it; she makes a sign with her hand to command silence, empties her glass at a gulp and with the same movement undoes her hair, which falls in shining tresses over her shoulders; she opens her mouth as if to start a drinking-song; her eyes are half closed."
• "Later on in the evening of the same day he added to this creation two more songs from Shakespeare -- the drinking-song from 'Antony and Cleopatra,' and the well-known 'Who is"