Unless you’re a professional painter who was hired to create a giant mural of Elmo (let me know how to get that job!), the expression “paint the town red” is figurative. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the phrase means “to enjoy oneself flamboyantly” or “to go on a boisterous or exuberant spree.” But why do we use the verb “paint” for this? And for that matter, why red instead of blue, neon green, or a glittery silver?
Legend has it that “paint the town red” was inspired by an 1837 event that took place in the English town of Melton Mowbray. The story goes that the Marquis of Waterford — who was a noted hooligan — got a little too rowdy with his friends and splattered red paint all over several buildings throughout the town. While it certainly seems like a plausible tale, the etymological origin for the phrase is difficult to confirm.
While it certainly seems like a plausible tale, it’s difficult to confirm as the etymological origin for the phrase. “Paint the town red” didn’t appear in print until nearly five decades later — the March 10, 1882, issue of Stanford, Kentucky’s Semi-Weekly Interior Journal includes the sentence, “He gets on a high old drunk with a doubtful man, and they paint the town red together,” in an article about bribing elected officials. In 1883, The New York Times used the phrase in a political context: “Mr. James Hennessy offered a resolution that the entire body proceed forthwith to Newark and get drunk… to ‘paint the town red.’” Many of the early uses appear to be political in nature and to refer specifically to drunkenness.
Over time, the phrase came to be less inherently associated with politics and booze. Now “painting the town red” is used to describe any form of unbridled revelry, whether real paint is involved or not.
