Three sheets in/to the wind

To be three sheets in the wind means to be drunk or inebriated and is first cited in this sense from 1821. The origin is nautical from the days of sailing ships where sheets were the ropes that held sails in place, or sometimes the sails themselves. If three sheets were to come undone for some reason, the sail would flap wildly in the wind and could cause the ship lose control, hence the analogy of being drunk and out of control. Although the original expression is three sheets in the wind, these days, three sheets to the wind appears to be popular. There have been citations for ‘one sheet in the wind’ and ‘two sheets in the wind’ in 1824 and 1815 respectively, which indicate that sailors may have had a scale of inebriation from one to three, but only three sheets in or to the wind survives today.