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View synonyms for on the wagon

on the wagon



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Idioms and Phrases

Abstaining from drinking alcoholic beverages, as in Don't offer her wine; she's on the wagon . This expression is a shortening of on the water wagon , referring to the horse-drawn water car once used to spray dirt roads to keep down the dust. Its present meaning dates from about 1900. The antonym off the wagon , used for a resumption of drinking, dates from the same period. B.J. Taylor used it in Extra Dry (1906): “It is better to have been on and off the wagon than never to have been on at all.”

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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