A dive bar, or simply a dive, is a downmarket drinking establishment serving a working class (or poorer) clientele.
The term "dive" dates from the London of the 19th Century when younger men wanted somewhere slightly more risqué to spend their afternoons than the great clubs frequented by their fathers. They formed more informal clubs where they smoked and drank coffee. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary indicates that in the U.S in the 1880's, it referred to an illegal drinking den or place of low repute, especially in a cellar or similar place. It has also been used to refer to opium dens. More recently, in Canada at least, it is associated with cheap and dirty accommodation (such as fleabag motels and run-down rooming), as well as with prostitution and other disreputable or illegal activities. In the US, so-called dive bars have become a fad among urban hipsters. Since working class people and urban hipsters rarely care to mingle, urban hipsters go to bars that specially recreate the physical characteristics of dive bars (run-down hardware, outdated furnishings, general uncleanliness) but without the working class clientele.
