The word hangover originally meant “a remainder” or “something left over,” and only later came to mean the after-effects of drinking too much. The alcohol sense is documented in American English by the early 1900s, built on the older idea of something that “hangs over” from the night before.

Origin

  • Early usage in the late 19th century referred to a survival, leftover, or after-effect, not alcohol specifically.
  • By around 1902, the word was being used for the miserable feeling after heavy drinking.

Rope story

The popular story that it came from drunken sailors sleeping over a rope is false and has been widely debunked by fact-checkers and linguists.

Plain-English version

Think of it this way: a hangover is the part of last night that still “lingers” this morning, and that lingering idea is what the word originally described.

TL;DR: Hangover comes from an older meaning of “leftover” or “after- effect,” not from sailors on ropes.