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I was watching a game of snooker the other day and heard one of the commentators say "This player has got more bottle than a milkman" after a particularly good shot. What does this mean and how could it be used in other contexts?

PS. google yields no useful results for this expression.

smci
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    A milkman is a man who delivers milk. He delivers milk in bottles. He delivers a lot of milk to a lot of people, so a milkman has a lot of bottles. This snooker player has even more bottles than a milkman. So the snooker player has a lot of bottle(s). So what you're looking for is not the phrase, but the meaning of bottle either as a technical term in cue games or as a general term of approbation in the dialect of the speaker (presumably BrE). That he said "more bottle", as a mass noun, as opposed to "more bottles" as a count noun, is a hint: it's an adjective, a characteristic. – Dan Bron Apr 02 '17 at 14:36
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    My best guess, without googling [snooker glossary bottle] or [British slang bottle] is that bottle here is used metaphorically to mean "the ability to bottle things up', or "put things in narrow-necked containers", ie. *sink balls into pockets", but I'm not sure if snooker has pockets or is just a carom game. I always forget. – Dan Bron Apr 02 '17 at 14:36
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    @DavidRicherby It was guidance to the OP of how to go about finding such answers, teaching a man to fish. Note that the real answer -- British slang -- was offered as well, along with my original comment helping OP analyze the core of the problem (the word bottle, as opposed to the entire phrase). In other words, my comments were helpful. Was yours? – Dan Bron Apr 02 '17 at 17:47
  • You may want to read the answers to this question.. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/34905/london-dialect-usage – 7caifyi Apr 03 '17 at 14:20
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    'Bottle' is a British slang as the others said. What do you mean "PS. google yields no useful results for this expression."? The top-4 Google hits I get all reference this British usage (not just London), and the #2 hit is LearnersDictionary: bottle (noun) 4: British slang : courage or strength of spirit Example: I don't think he's got bottle [=guts] enough to confront them. – smci Apr 03 '17 at 21:53
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    @DanBron for what it's worth, I understood your intent just fine. There's nothing wrong with your comment—that's why it's a comment, after all. – user428517 Apr 03 '17 at 23:20
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    To be fair to both sides of the comment kerfluffle, Dan Bron started with a fine (and highly-voted) comment and then followed with a less-highly-voted (and therefore not always visible) comment that indirectly hinted at two Web searches one might try (both useful, as it turns out), along with a wild (and wrong) guess about what the results might be. So there is a lot of good stuff there, as well as something that might be fairly criticized. – David K Apr 04 '17 at 14:22
  • I hadn't actually noticed that @DanBron had posted two comments. I was addressing the second one, though I would note that "bottle" is not a term in snooker, so the first comment doesn't make a whole lot of sense, either. – David Richerby Apr 04 '17 at 15:28
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    From tonight's London Evening Standard: an account of Benedict Cumberbatch attending a friend's boutique opening but leaving early to see his new son. The headline is "New daddy Cumberbatch bottles out early." – David Garner Apr 06 '17 at 20:14
  • I don't think 'bottle' normally means 'arse'. That's perhaps a folk etymology of 'lose your bottle'. On the other hand, if someone, or some group, thought it did mean arse, he/they might have used the phrase 'more bottle than milkman' to mean 'has more pieces of ass (women) than a milkman' alluding to the common belief that milkman sleep with a lot of women living in houses that they deliver milk to. Or it could be used to mean 'a lot of courage' but with the little joke/allusion to the idea of adulterous milkmen (who have the 'bottle' to commit adultery). – Matthew Christopher Bartsh May 21 '21 at 05:59
  • Just a thought but, for what it's worth, the OP says it was a particularly good shot, not a particularly brave one, so it is possible that some other meaning besides brave was intended, if the commentator believed or was aware that some understand 'bottle' to be rhyming slang for 'arse'. Did the player have in some sense 'a lot of posterior' e.g. a large posterior. The OP did not say whether the player had bent over the table with the posterior towards the camera/spectators, nor whether the player was male or female. I think the OP should add these details to his or her question. – Matthew Christopher Bartsh May 21 '21 at 06:09

3 Answers3

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In this context bottle is probably the informal BrE term for 'nerve' or 'courage'.

British informal mass noun The courage or confidence needed to do something difficult or dangerous.

’I lost my bottle completely and ran’

ODO, sense 2.

To say that someone has "more bottle than a milkman" is a jocular way of saying that he is very bold: a milkman, who delivers milk to homes, of course has a lot of bottles.

Dan Bron
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StoneyB on hiatus
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    Now the real question is, "why" bottle? Must be some cockney rhyming slang. Or maybe it's derived from "to bottle up (=contain) one's courage" EDIT See here: https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-200505,00.htm it's italiano! :) – Mari-Lou A Apr 02 '17 at 15:13
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    I don't know any cockney rhyming slang, but I know "bottle" and the verb "bottle out", so this has nothing to do with rhyming slang. – gnasher729 Apr 02 '17 at 15:57
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    @Mari-LouA Here's more on the origin of bottle='nerve'. – StoneyB on hiatus Apr 02 '17 at 17:19
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    @Mari-LouA your reference states that fiasco comes from Italian; bottle=courage does not. As an italiano, I confirm. :) – Federico Poloni Apr 02 '17 at 19:17
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    @FedericoPoloni meanings and interpretations evolve, especially where loanwords are concerned. Did you know that latte in English stands fro white/milky coffee? That some Americans call pizza a "pie", so if a fiasco was slang in italian theatre for a disastrous performance, and "a failure," by 1862 it meant any flop, on or off the stage. And who hasn't heard of an actor needing "dutch courage" before appearing on the stage? I personally like the "bottle and glass" analogy. – Mari-Lou A Apr 02 '17 at 19:25
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    In the same vein, you could also say of someone courageous "they've more balls than a Jane Austen novel". – Colonel Panic Apr 03 '17 at 08:47
  • For some reason snooker commentators are very fond of various expressions with bottle. I have heard it used in cycling, rugby and soccer as well, but in snooker it seems far more common than in any other sport. – Tonny Apr 03 '17 at 11:06
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    In BrE, this sense of "bottle" can be an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym. It can mean "courage, nerve, aggression, will to succeed", etc, or the opposite, in a sentence like "he was winning the competition till the final stage, but then bottled it" - i.e. he lost his nerve, and failed. – alephzero Apr 03 '17 at 12:17
  • @Mari-LouA Not really related but for your edification, the answer is "me". This is the first time I've ever heard of "Dutch courage" and I still don't know what it is. – Todd Wilcox Apr 03 '17 at 12:55
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    Upon reading that "bottle" = "courage", my first thought was that it originated from alcohol, i.e. "liquid courage", such as someone taking a drink before hitting on someone else, or a soldier taking a drink before popping out of a foxhole/bunker/etc to return fire. – Doktor J Apr 03 '17 at 21:15
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    @ToddWilcox 'Dutch courage' is from the 17th-century fashion for deprecating all things Dutch (England was at war with the Netherlands) and has the sense DoktorJ infers. – StoneyB on hiatus Apr 03 '17 at 21:20
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It is Cockney rhyming slang, from "bottle and glass", which rhymes with "arse". So it is an inoffensive way of saying "arse", which in this context means "courage" (I'm not quite sure why).

It is common in the phrase "to lose one's bottle": "I lost my bottle completely when I saw the knife in 'is 'and." Any native speaker of British English would understand it (although I don't think they would all know its origin as rhyming slang).

Edited to add: After reading the answers at this link from @StoneyB's comment, I am less certain about this than I was.

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TonyK
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    Stoney's answer explains the obvious milkman / bottle part, whereas yours starts to explain the more obscure cockney derivation of bottle, so I don't know why Stoney's has so many upvotes. The link you give goes on to explain the connection with courage or nerve - the ability to restrain the involuntary bowel-emptying that accompanies extreme fear! I don't know why you're less certain after reading those answers - they mostly confirm your assumption. – peterG Apr 03 '17 at 15:45
  • @peterG: specifically, the note quoted from the OED in Andrew Leach's answer ("probably derives from the phrase no bottle"). – TonyK Apr 03 '17 at 15:59
  • Completely agree with @peter - to have bottle implies that you don't "lose your arse" easily (as suggested by AnonRB, which means that you're courageous. You should be more confident! – Tom Fenech Apr 04 '17 at 22:12
  • @Tom Thanks . . . and it occurs to me that there are several other links between courage/resolve and, er, intestinal fortitude - 'having the stomach for s/t' and 'he's got guts' etc. Long way from the sort of solid etymology required for an answer, but certainly suggestive. – peterG Apr 04 '17 at 22:50
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    The Cockney rhyming slang "bottle and glass" does indeed rhyme with "arse" (in Southern British English). To lose one's bottle means to lose one's arse, ie to be so fearful as to lose control of one's bowels. Related to this is the increasingly popular phrase "squeaky bum time", coined I think by Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United manager, meaning a moment when extreme courage is required. – Harold Nov 16 '20 at 17:28
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    @DewiMorgan: Yes. That is the second link in my answer. – TonyK May 21 '21 at 20:52
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It could be that it comes from when beer made by Courage came in bottles. http://aldertons.com/home/slang/

If you want milk, put the Ari on the doorstep. [Every now and again they throw a curve at you. One person has suggested that, not being familiar with Aristotle, early Cockney's might have assumed the name was Harry Stottle! Heard from John Mahony who says that when one uses the expression "lose your bottle" it means to lose the contents of your arse, i.e. "he's shit it", but Ken Caleno says it means to lose your courage (from Courage's bottled beer)]

NVZ
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