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The British-English noun champers is upper-class slang for the noun champagne, designating an expensive sparkling wine produced in the Champagne region of France.
The noun champers occurs, for example, in the following from There’s more to Italian sparkling wine than prosecco, by Hannah Crosbie, published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Saturday 28th June 2025 [Feast: page 15, column 2]:
Fortunately, there is so much Italian sparkling wine out there that isn’t prosecco. Nigh on every region has its own take. The Trento DOC, which, like prosecco, is in the north-east, produces metodo classico wines from chardonnay and pinot nero, which are made using the champagne method with a secondary fermentation in the bottle (prosecco is produced using the charmat, or tank, method). They can command fairly high prices, but they can still be had in your local supermercato for far less than champers.
The noun champers is composed of:
– the first syllable of the noun champagne;
– the suffix -ers (also -er), used to make jocular formations on nouns, by clipping them—cf. the noun soccer and quotation 3 below.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the noun champers that I have found:
1-: From It Makes You Think, by Rex North, published in the Sunday Pictorial (London, England) of Sunday 23rd December 1945 [page 4, column 2]:
Look back seven years to the Christmas of 1938, to that other world that will never come back. It will make you think . . .
Last week I turned back the newspaper files to this paradise of plenty—and now I am an unhappy man.
Would you, sir, like a crate of spirits for two guineas? In it to help along your festivities will be found a bottle of champagne, bottle of whisky, one port, one sherry and a bottle of gin and vermouth cocktail.
This is not a fairy story. It is Christmas, 1938. Christmas, 1945, is. . . .
“You can have a bottle of Scotch for four,” said The Man Who Can Get Things yesterday. “Champers will cost you ten and a half, port and sherry forty-five bob each, and I’ll throw in a bottle of cocktail for two.”
Translated, this means £18 15s.—if you know a man who can get things—as against £2 2s. in 1938, a hard fact which everyone seems to have ignored in compiling the cost of living index.
2-: From The Queen makes a point about her Guardsmen, by Noel Whitcomb, published in the Daily Mirror (London, England) of Saturday 25th April 1953 [page 2, column 3]—the noun debutante designates a young woman of upper-class background making a debut into society:
Princess Margaret’s sealyham [sic], Johnny, is soon to get a dog-mat made of silk brocade that will make him never, never want to scratch.
[…]
But the cocktail party that was given to launch this anti-scratch mat was an unusual affair.
It was held, of course, in Park-lane. The room was exquisite, oak-panelled and richly gilded.
[…]
A couple of debutantes were dreamily dispensing publicity blurbs, and three elegant young men about town—all in tight trousers and dark red carnations—were beamingly pouring champagne.
“Glass of champers, eh?” said one, passing me a glass.
3-: From On putting the Deb into Debrett, by Maureen Owen, published in the News Chronicle (London, England) of Thursday 22nd July 1954 [page 6, column 8]—here, deb is short for debutante, and Debrett refers to social etiquette in the British upper class:
Notes from Debdom:
Current language adds “ers” to all possible nouns and adjectives, i.e., champers (champagne), badders (bad luck), aggers (agony).
4-: From The Beckoning Lady (Harmondsworth (Middlesex): Penguin Books Ltd, 1960), a crime novel (first published in 1955 by Chatto & Windus, London), by the British author Margery Allingham (1904-1966) [chapter 4, page 72]—Perception refers to Perception and Company Limited, a catering company:
‘I invite everybody who has anything to do with selling my work, some old clients and some prospective ones. I’ve got Bedger coming from the Lyle, and Van der Hum and oh—dozens of them. There will be a lot of us. Perception has spent the whole of its allotment on champers and I’m doing the rest.’
Mr Campion raised his brows. ‘Solid champagne?’ he inquired.
She nodded. ‘I know some people don’t like it, but it’s so easy.’
5-: From Commercial section, published in the Manchester Evening News (Manchester, Lancashire, England) of Friday 10th February 1956 [page 18, column 4]:
JAGUARS PAY MORE
Sir William Lyons, head of Jaguar Cars, is a man in the limelight. He is a great dollar-winner. And he toasts in champagne the Monto Carlo winner—a Jaguar. Just a sip of the champers for shareholders this time. Though they’re only too willing to marvel at Jaguar’s dynamism they have often felt dividends could be raised, and just a little less ploughed back.
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