bartendv.
/ˈbɑːˌtɛnd/, U.S. /ˈbɑrˌtɛnd/ Originally and chiefly North American.
1. transitive. To serve (drinks), esp. in a bar. Also: to work as a bartender at (an establishment, event, etc.).
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > drink > providing or serving drink > [verb (transitive)]
birleOE
drenchc1000
shenchOE
adrenchc1275
to drink to1297
tap1401
skinkc1405
propinec1450
brince?1567
liquor1575
to do right1600
dram1770
butler1826
jerk1868
to set up1880
drink1883
bartend1948
to break out1962
1948 Times Recorder (Zanesville, Ohio) 1 Dec. 6/3 We can..cook our own suppers and bartend our own drinks.
1979 T. Wolfe Right Stuff (2001) iii. 38 Just beyond the base,..there was a rickety wind-blown 1930's-style establishment called Pancho's Fly Inn, owned, run, and bartended by a woman named Pancho Barnes.
1997 J. Brady Further Lane 54 They were the husband and wife team who lived on her property, the missus cooking and keeping after the cleaning woman and the other day servants and people recruited to wait and bartend parties.
2. intransitive. To work as a bartender; to serve drinks.
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1949 C. Odets Big Knife i. 37 Coy. I'm ready to bar-tend, union regulations permitting. Marcus? Hoff. A little sparkling water.
1977 Washington Post 12 May f18/3 He'll keep the books, bartend and go the the [sic] dump from June to September.
1989 M. Norman These Good Men vi. 175 He was not a real party guy. He decided he would bartend and watch everybody else.
1998 Dallas Morning News (Electronic ed.) 26 Oct. ‘You can't bartend anywhere and make the money we make,’ he said, while filling an order for a Jack Daniels.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, September 2004; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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v.1948