verb phrase🎓 English idiom
paint the town red
to go out and celebrate wildly
What it means
To paint the town red means to go out and celebrate or enjoy yourself in a lively, extravagant way, often visiting bars, clubs, or restaurants. It suggests an energetic, possibly wild night out on the town.
Words like “paint the town red” are exactly the kind of vocabulary our English vocabulary size test measures — find out how many English words you know.
Examples
- After finishing exams, the students went out to paint the town red.
- Let's paint the town red to celebrate your promotion tonight.
- On her birthday, they painted the town red until dawn.
- We rarely go out, but tonight we're going to paint the town red.
Where it comes from
The phrase is often traced to an 1837 escapade in Melton Mowbray, England, where the rowdy Marquess of Waterford and friends literally daubed parts of the town with red paint.
Related idioms
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