vorglühen

What it means

1. 1.

   To pre-drink: to get most of the way to drunk at someone's flat before going out, because club and bar prices make doing it on the premises unaffordable.

2. 2.

   A whole social ritual rather than just a verb — the Vorglühen is an event you get invited to, often with its own playlist and start time.

Literally: To preheat — specifically, a diesel engine's glow plugs.

Examples with translations

• Wir glühen bei mir vor, so ab zehn.

  We're pre-drinking at mine, from about ten.

• Ich hab zu viel vorgeglüht, ich komm nicht mehr rein.

  I pre-drank too hard, they won't let me in.

  Note: Berlin door policy being what it is, this is a real outcome.

Where it comes from

From the diesel engine's glow plugs, which have to be pre-heated before the engine will start — vorglühen is the dashboard light. Student slang picked up the metaphor in the 1990s and it is now the ordinary word.

First attested: 1990s

Other forms

Similar terms:

vorheizen, vortrinken