get lit up

get lit up pronunciation

/git LIT up/

Meaning

Means you drank enough to feel it. We got lit up last night is weekend porch talk for tore up on alcohol. Lit and lit up have meant intoxicated in American slang for over a hundred years. In Appalachian country the same phrase can also mean you got whipped, chewed out, or stung hard, so listen to the story around it. Glossary sense here is the drinking one.

How folks use it

• “Them boys got lit up on shine behind the barn.”
• “I ain't fixin' to get lit up before Sunday dinner.”

Origin and etymology

From lit/lit up meaning intoxicated, tied to the glow of being illuminated. Merriam-Webster and Green’s Dictionary of Slang date the drunk sense to the early 1900s. Rural Southern and Appalachian talk kept get lit up for whiskey nights. Locally it also borrowed fire imagery from light you up (punish or sting), so one phrase covers more than one kind of heat.

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