An intoxicant is something that makes you drunk — most often alcohol, but also other substances that do the same job to the brain. In careful, scientific, or legal English, people say “intoxicants” when they want one umbrella word for drink and those drugs together, without naming each one. In everyday talk, most people just say “drink,” or they name the thing (beer, wine). You will see this word on warnings, in medicine, and in the law more than at the dinner table. Though actually, the older idea behind it is closer to poison than to a party: an intoxicant does not only make you happy; it takes away clear thinking, and too much of it is dangerous.

致醉物（酒，或會讓人醉的藥物）