# What does ‘paint the town red’ mean?

To “paint the town red” means to celebrate wildly, especially in public. A late 19th-century American idiom whose origin is uncertain; a folk story attributes it to the Marquess of Waterford's drunken exploits in Melton Mowbray in 1837, but the connection is not firm.

## What it means

- A late 19th-century American idiom whose origin is uncertain; a folk story attributes it to the Marquess of Waterford's drunken exploits in Melton Mowbray in 1837, but the connection is not firm.

## Action steps

1. Common in celebration talk.
2. Example: We're going to paint the town red tonight.

## Sources

- [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) — Internet Archive scan](https://archive.org/details/brewers-dictionary-of-phrase-and-fable)

---
Canonical: https://bestidiomanswers.com/answers/paint-the-town-red
Author: Best Idiom Answers — https://bestidiomanswers.com
Publisher: Best Idiom Answers
Published: 2026-07-18T04:16:36.02566+00:00
Modified: 2026-07-18T04:16:36.02566+00:00
Last verified: 2026-07-18
License: Citation License 1.0 — https://bestexpertanswers.com/license
© Adolicious LLC