noun General Slang

Plonk

/plɒŋk/ · noun · informal

Cheap, ordinary wine — British slang born from WWI soldiers mangling 'vin blanc'.

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Definitions

1

Used affectionately for a no-nonsense drink with no pretension.

“None of your fancy stuff, just a glass of decent plonk will do me.”
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2

Any wine in a casual, unfussy sense, not necessarily bad.

“We worked our way through three bottles of plonk and put the world to rights.”
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3

Cheap or low-quality wine, the kind you grab without checking the label.

“Grab a bottle of plonk on the way over, anything under a fiver.”
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Plonk In A Sentence

That supermarket plonk gave me the worst headache of my life.
She turned up with a box of plonk and a packet of crisps, legend.
We're not wine snobs, plonk's perfectly good for a Tuesday.

Origin & Usage

British slang from WWI, when soldiers in France mispronounced 'vin blanc' (white wine) as 'plonk'. It became the all-purpose word for cheap wine and stuck for over a century.

Variants plonkyvino
Tags #british#uk#money#slang

People Also Ask

What does plonk mean in British slang?

It means cheap, ordinary wine. It came from British soldiers mangling the French 'vin blanc' during WWI.

Is plonk always bad wine?

Not necessarily — it usually means cheap and unpretentious, often used affectionately rather than as an insult.

Why is cheap wine called plonk?

Because WWI soldiers turned the French 'vin blanc' into 'plonk', and the word stuck as British slang for cheap wine.

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