under the influence

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under the influence

n. one of many phrases for being drunk on alcoholic beverages or high on drugs or a combination of alcohol and drugs. Driving a vehicle when "under the influence" of alcohol or drugs is a crime, as is "public drunkenness." (See: driving under the influence, driving while intoxicated)

References in classic literature ?

If you tell me that, so far as you know, your husband capriciously struck you out of his will, without assignable reason or motive for doing so, and without other obvious explanation of his conduct than that he acted in this matter entirely under the influence of Mrs.

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I am, at this moment, exerting my intelligence (such as it is) in your service, under the influence of a dose of laudanum, some ten times larger than the dose Mr.

So much for the capacity of a man to occupy himself actively, and to move about from place to place under the influence of opium.