Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts

The expression paint the town red, means to celebrate wildly, to party with unruly abandon. Though every American English speaker knows how to use it, this colorful phrase has a surprisingly fugitive origin.

One theory suggests the "paint" in this expression was actually red glow of fire that blazed in frontier settlements after an attack by some vengeful faction. This image provided the later metaphor for celebrants who partied with incendiary glee.

William and Mary Morris, in the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, contend that "red" in this phrase refers to the red light districts in the frontier West. A herd of rowdy workers, after visiting the shady section for whiskey and company, might decide to treat everywhere else like a red light district, thus "painting the town red."

Or perhaps the red in this expression is symbolic of violence and blood, giving us a phrase that figuratively means to cover the town with bleeding and brawling.

A final contender connects this phrase with an older expression to paint, meaning "to drink;" the paint here being the red on a drunk's nose. Using this borrowing, to paint the town red would be to visit every saloon on the streets.

This lively expression has a mind of its own, refusing the scrutiny of America's most earnest word watchers.

Radio Script > Paint the Town Red