a. and sb. [f. TANGLE v.1 + FOOT sb.] a. adj. That tangles or entangles the foot. b. sb. That which tangles or entraps the foot; spec. U.S. slang, an intoxicating beverage, esp. whisky. Also attrib. So Tangle-footed a., having tangled feet, stumbling.
1860. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Tangle-foot, one of the Western figurative terms for whiskey.
1871. Hartford Courant, 12 March (Farmer, Slang). He proceeded … toward a neighboring saloon in quest of tangle-foot.
1881. ‘Mark Twain,’ Innoc. at Home, ii. He could … hold more tangle-foot whisky without spilling it than any man in seventeen counties.
1888. Voice (N. Y.), 27 Dec. [Stories] of this tanglefooted variety, which trip up and throw themselves by their absurdity and self-contradiction.
1893. Chicago Advance, 28 Sept. The tangle-foot complications in which it was sure to involve its defenders.
1900. Daily News, 11 April, 3/2. The poisonous ‘Cape Smoke,’ or ‘tanglefoot,’ which they [soldiers] get in too great abundance out here.
1908. W. R. Hearst, in Westm. Gaz., 2 Oct., 5/1. The deeper he sinks into the tangle-foot of corruption and contradiction.
