Definition
To intoxicate means to bring a person into a state of diminished mental and physical capacity through the ingestion of alcohol or another substance. As a verb it describes the act or process; the resulting condition is intoxication.
In legal usage the term operates across several distinct doctrinal contexts:
1. Criminal law — public intoxication. Statutes penalizing public intoxication require proof that the person was intoxicated, meaning impaired to a legally sufficient degree, in a public place. The term is not self-defining; courts and statutes vary on what threshold of impairment qualifies.
2. Criminal law — intoxication as a defense or mitigating factor. Voluntary intoxication may negate specific intent in jurisdictions that permit the defense; involuntary intoxication (through force, fraud, or unknowing ingestion) may support a broader excuse. The distinction between voluntary and involuntary intoxication is doctrinally sharp and has significant consequences for which defenses are available.
3. Contracts — capacity. A person who was intoxicated at the time of contracting may have lacked the mental capacity to form a binding agreement. The standard is not merely that the person had been drinking, but that intoxication was severe enough to prevent understanding the nature and consequences of the transaction.
4. Tort law. Intoxication of a tortfeasor may be relevant to negligence analysis, and in some jurisdictions to punitive damages. Dram shop statutes impose liability on those who furnish alcohol to a person who later causes harm.
"Intoxicated," used without qualification in a charging instrument or statute, has generally been read to refer to intoxication from alcohol. Anderson's Dictionary notes that when other substances are intended, other language is used — as in "intoxicated with opium" or "intoxicated with ether."
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To stupefy by doping with chemical substances such as alcohol; also, to excite to enthusiasm or madness.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Overexcited, as with joy or grief — used in a purely figurative sense, as in Chapman's quotation: "be not intoxicate for me."
The legal term has narrowed considerably from both these common usages. Webster's 1913 captures a figurative sense — emotional overwhelm — that carries no legal weight whatsoever. The Wiktionary definition is closer to modern legal usage but the secondary sense ("excitement to enthusiasm") is also legally irrelevant. Researchers reading historical documents should recognize that "intoxicated" in non-legal texts may describe emotional states, not chemical impairment.
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Common Confusion
Intoxicated vs. drunk: In everyday speech the terms are interchangeable. In legal sources, "drunk" typically appears in older statutes and common law formulations; "intoxicated" is the more formal term used in modern legislation and pleadings. Black's notes that an indictment averring the defendant was "found intoxicated" is sufficient without specifying the intoxicant. Anderson's treats "drunk" and "intoxicated" as equivalent when alcohol is the cause, but distinguishes cases involving other substances.
Voluntary vs. involuntary intoxication: These are not merely gradations of the same concept — they are distinct legal categories with different doctrinal consequences. See the RECOGNIZED FORMS entry below and the encyclopedia entry for Intoxication — Voluntary and Involuntary.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Voluntary intoxication: The person knowingly consumed an intoxicating substance. Generally available, where permitted at all, only to negate specific intent crimes. Many jurisdictions have abolished or severely limited this defense by statute.
Involuntary intoxication: The person became intoxicated through force, fraud, duress, or without knowledge that the substance was intoxicating. Treated more favorably than voluntary intoxication and may support a full excuse defense in appropriate circumstances.
Pathological intoxication: An extreme and unforeseeable reaction to a small amount of alcohol or other substance in a person with an unusual susceptibility. Recognized in some jurisdictions as a form of involuntary intoxication.
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Why It Matters in Research
The word "intoxicate" is jurisdictionally and temporally variable in ways that are easy to underestimate. Early American statutes were written almost entirely with alcohol in mind; courts construing them were frequently asked whether the same language extended to narcotics, ether, or other substances. A researcher reading 19th-century case law should not assume that holdings about intoxication transfer cleanly to modern drug-related contexts.
In the contracts context, the intoxication standard for incapacity is functionally distinct from the incapacity standard used in mental illness cases, and the two are frequently conflated in secondary literature. The contracts corpus should be read alongside the criminal law corpus carefully — the same word does different work in each.
Charging instrument sufficiency is a recurring historical issue. Black's preserves a Vermont authority holding that a complaint averring the defendant was "found intoxicated" need not specify the intoxicant. That pleading rule has not survived uniformly into modern practice, and researchers should not assume it reflects current law in any given jurisdiction.
Dram shop liability and the intoxication element in tort cases constitute a separate research silo from the criminal and contracts materials. The intoxication threshold in civil dram shop cases is often defined by statute and may differ from the criminal intoxication standard in the same state.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Anderson's are in agreement that the core legal meaning of "intoxicated" — at the time of their compilation — was synonymous with "drunk" from spirituous liquor. Both treat the two words as interchangeable in the alcohol context. Anderson's adds the instructive observation that when a different intoxicant is meant, drafters use qualifying language rather than relying on "intoxicated" alone. This reflects the alcohol-centric world in which these dictionaries were written and is a meaningful limitation: neither source offers meaningful guidance on drug intoxication, polysubstance impairment, or the voluntary/involuntary distinction in its modern doctrinal form.
Neither dictionary addresses intoxication as a defense to criminal liability in any developed way. Neither addresses the contracts-capacity dimension. These silences reflect the state of doctrine at the time more than any editorial judgment — the voluntary intoxication defense, for instance, was still forming through case law when these works were current. Researchers relying on these historical dictionaries for anything beyond the basic definition will need to supplement heavily with case law and modern treatises.
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Jurisdictional Note
The availability and scope of voluntary intoxication as a criminal defense varies substantially by jurisdiction — several states have abolished it entirely by statute, others limit it to specific intent crimes, and a minority permit broader use. The intoxication standard in public intoxication statutes also varies, with some states requiring visible impairment and others specifying blood alcohol concentration thresholds.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Public Intoxication (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)
Intoxication — Voluntary and Involuntary (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)
Contracts — Capacity to Contract (Minors, Mental Incapacity, Intoxication) (The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia)
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