half

   1. a quantity of beer

   Shortened form of half a pint:

    Pints were for men... only boys drank halves. (Sharpe, 1975)

   In obsolete use, to half-pint was to drink beer:

    Two miners were 'half-pinting' in the public house. (R. Hunt, 1865)

   In America as half a can:

    'Bring me half a can.' A half-can meant a nickel's worth of beer. A whole can meant a dime's worth. (Longstreet, 1956 — those were the days!)

   Half and half is mild and bitter beer in the same glass:

    He would not play except for a pint of half and half. (Mayhew, 1862)

   2. wholly

   Used of drunkenness in many phrases where the half is not a partial condition but usually equals the whole, as in half and half, half canned, cooked, corned, cut, foxed, gone, in the bag, on, etc. Although incapacity through ingesting alcohol or narcotics is often described by the same euphemism, only with alcohol is the condition often divided by two:

    'Were you drunk at the time?' 'Well, I'll tell you what it is, gentlemen. I was half-and-half.' {Evesham Journal, 1879, quoted in EDD)