or afternoon’s-man, subs. phr. (old).—A man who drinks long into the afternoon: but see quot. 1877.
1614. OVERBURY, Characters, ‘A Water-man,’ (1638), 196. Make him an AFTER-NOONES MAN.
1621. BURTON, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Democr. to Reader (1657), 44. Beraldus will have drunkards, AFTERNOON MEN, and such as more than ordinarily delight in drink, to be mad.
1628. EARLE, Microcosmographie. (A Player). Innes of Court men were undone but for him, hee … makes them AFTERNOONES MEN.
1830. Dublin Sketch Book. The good Baronet (Sir Francis Burdett) was not only a foxhunter, but a celebrated AFTER-DINNER MAN. It must have been a good bout indeed in which he was worsted.
1877. SMYTHE-PALMER [Notes and Queries, 5 S. viii. 112]. AFTERNOONES MEN, equivalent to AFTER-DINNER MEN. It was the custom, formerly, to dine in the halls of our Inns of Court about noon, and those who returned after dinner to work must have been much devoted to business, or obliged to work at unusual hours by an excess of it.
