bender

Hypotheses:

• bend +‎ -er. In sense of “heavy drinking”, originally generally “spree”, from 1846,^[1] of uncertain origin – vague contemporary sense of “something extraordinary”, connection to bend (e.g., bending elbow to drink (bend one's elbow)) or perhaps from Scottish sense of “strong drinker”.^[1]
• In Britain, for about four centuries, a sixpence was known as a bender because its silver content made it easy to bend in the hands. This was commonly done to create ‘love tokens’, many of which survive in collections to this day. The value of a sixpence was also enough to get thoroughly inebriated as taverns would often allow you to drink all day for two pence. This gave rise to the expression ‘going on a bender’. ^[2]
• (interjection): From over the bender, referring to a person's arm (and sometimes accompanied by a gesture of the thumb backward over the shoulder); compare over the left shoulder.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɛndə/
• (General American) enPR: bĕnʹdər, IPA^(key): /ˈbɛndɚ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛndə(ɹ)

bender (plural benders)

1. One who, or that which, bends.
2. A device to aid bending of pipes to a specific angle.
3. (slang) A bout of heavy drinking.

   Synonyms: batter, binge

   He's been out on a bender with his mates.

   • 1857, Newspaper, April:^[3]

     A couple of students of Williams College went over to North Adams on a bender. This would have been serious matter under the best of circumstances, but each returned with a “brick in his hat,” etc.

   • 2016 February 14, Joseph Adenuga, Darren Dixon, Tariq Devega (lyrics and music), “Ladies Hit Squad” (track 6), in Konnichiwa, performed by Skepta ft. D Double E and ASAP Nast, Boy Better Know:

     We can have a mad one, we can have a bender / Order what you want from the bartender / Come back to mine and all be splender / I'll give you a night to remember

4. (chiefly UK, slang, derogatory) A homosexual man.
   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 6, in The Line of Beauty […], 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

     “So they're easy about having a bender in the house, are they, their lordships?”

5. A simple shelter, made using flexible branches or withies.
6. (UK, slang) A suspended sentence.
   • 2015, Olly Jarvis, Death by Dangerous, page 81:

     'Oh and Gary, what happened in Ahmed?' 'Not guilty, sir.' 'Oh no! And Tredwell?' 'Bender.' 'Suspended sentence? So both walked. […]

   • 2019, Howard Williamson, Youth and Policy: Contexts and Consequences:

     He anticipated a prison sentence though he thought there was a slight possibility of 'getting off on a bender' (suspended sentence).

7. (obsolete, UK, slang) A sixpence.
   • 1836, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers 42:

     What will you take to be paid out?’ said the butcher. ‘The regular chummage is two–and–six. Will you take three bob?’ ‘And a bender,’ suggested the clerical gentleman. ‘Well, I don’t mind that; it’s only twopence a piece more,’ said Mr. Martin. ‘What do you say, now? We’ll pay you out for three–and–sixpence a week. Come!’

8. (obsolete, slang, US) A spree, a frolic.
9. (obsolete, slang, US) Something exceptional.

In sense “bout of heavy drinking”, usually in form “on a bender”.

• (bout of heavy drinking): binge, spree, toot
• (homosexual man): See Thesaurus:male homosexual
• (shelter): bender tent

bender

1. (obsolete, British slang) Used to express disbelief or doubt at what one has just heard. [early 19th c.]
2. (obsolete, British slang) Used to indicate that the previous phrase was meant sarcastically or ironically. [early 19th c.]

   O yes, I'll do it — bender!

• (disbelief): See Thesaurus:bullshit
• (sarcasm): I don't think, not
• over the bender, over the left, over the left shoulder

• Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, p. 96
• Eric Partridge (1949) A Dictionary of the Underworld, London: Macmillan Co.

• Berden, berend, rebend

bender

1. Superseded spelling of vender.

• Bal Palazios, Santiago (2002) “bender”, in Dizionario breu de a luenga aragonesa, Zaragoza, →ISBN