doss, v. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

doss v.

1. to sleep.

1747		Life and Character of Moll King 11: Does Jack doss in your Pad now?
1754		G. Stevens ‘A Cant Song’ Muses Delight 177: She said I must love you, you’re quiddish and bold, / You shall doss with me Jemmy till jamming.
c.1800		‘Brick Dust Nan’ No. 27 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: All night in the latter they dossed, and got up in the morning to louse.
1833		‘Sandman Joe’ in Lummy Chaunter 82: This night I’ll doss with my Joey.
1842		‘The Saint Giles’s Jade’ in Nancy Dawson’s Cabinet of Songs 45: So Molly come down with delight, / An’ doss’d it all night long with me.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 72: And as for dossing, send I may live! [...] vy, I never dropd my blinkers all night.
1855		Yokel’s Preceptor 29: Dossing, Sleeping. Doss, To sleep.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 6/1: Squib did not care what they said about her, so long as she had a good-looking ‘mug,’ and was willing to ‘doss’ with him.
1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 500: I [...] did not go home that night, but met my two pals and dossed in a haystack.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 3: Doss - To sleep.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 237: The vagabond brotherhood have several slang terms for sleeping out in a field or meadow. It is called ‘snoozing in Hedge-square,’ ‘dossing with the daisies,’ and ‘lying under the blue blanket’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Apr. 18/2: Two shoddy merchants recently secured board at a doss-and-feed repository in Woolloomooloo, bringing with them a carpet-bag, two clean shirts in a parcel, and a galvanic battery.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 July 9/2: Traveller: I say, boss, is there any empty hut a cove could camp in to-night? It looks like rain. Squatter: Well, yes, there’s the Chinamen’s hut down there; you can doss with them if they’ll let you – I don’t object.
1896		Mirror of Life 11 July 15/1: Peter could not ‘doss’ in the Rookery, that being full of ‘touchers,’ ear-biters, &c.
1902		J. Masefield ‘A Ballad of Cape Vincent’ in Salt-Water Ballads 66: Now, Bill, ain’t it prime to be a-sailin’ [...] Dossin’ snug aneath the weather-railin’.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Oct. 4/8: You reckon things is pretty onkus, / Dossin’ Outer Doors.
1911		L. Stone Jonah 39: Don’t I remember the time ’e used ter ’awk a basket o’ fish on Fridays, an’ doss in the park?
1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 276: A barge it was, down at the canal, Camden-town way, what I’d bin dossing in.
a.1920		‘Flash Jack from Gundagai’ 🎵 I’ve been whalin’ up the Lachlan and I’ve dossed at Cooper’s Creek, / And once I rung Cudjingie shed and blued it in a week.
1926		S. O’Casey Plough and the Stars Act IV: Come on with me, dear, an’ you can doss in poor Mollser’s bed.
1932		(con. WWI) L. Mann Flesh in Armour 10: ‘Let’s get a place to doss. What about the Strand Palace?’.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 19: There was a big hayloft up under the rafters, [...] one of the cosiest skyppers it has been my lot to have dossed in.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 175: I was dossing at the Salvation Army joint.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 284: I couldn’t even afford to keep me old room on when they manpowered me and I had to doss in a stinkin’ little back room.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 16: He can doss in there if he likes.
1961		R.S. Close With Hooves of Brass 180: ‘They can all doss in the dining-room tonight’.
1971		Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves 11: Much more comfortable than dossing at a pub.
1976		T. Murphy Sanctuary Lamp in Plays: 3 (1994) II ii: The little pad we used to doss in?
1992		in R. Graef Living Dangerously 45: Another room had been dossed in by a mate.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] ‘If you want to crash out [...] I’ll doss in the other room’.
1999		Guardian G2 12 Oct. 2: I’d been in town a few days, dossing with a family.
2006		D. Seabrook Jack of Jumps (2007) 210: A drunken Irishman appeared [...] wanting somewhere to doss.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 237: I don’t mind Mark dossing here, he’s a decent geezer.

2. (US) to lean against.

1899–1900

C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 116: Stop dossin’ agin the post. You’re liable to fall down.

3. (also doss about) to do nothing, to relax.

1973		(con. mid-1960s) J. Patrick Glasgow Gang Observed 83: ‘Jist dossin’ aw day’ was the gang’s ideal. School, employment, reading all took up valuable time which could be better spent in doing nothing.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 412: I’m just gonna doss for a day or two.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 67: A group of dirty diggers were dossing near the phone-box.
2017		G. Gilmore Headland [ebook] ‘I think a bit of dossing about might be just what the doctor ordered’.
2020		G. Armstrong Young Team 7: Our dossin aboot the streets doesnae qualify fur a high quality [...] jakit [...] two hundred and fifty bucks.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 38: We were all born to play, to doss, to smash, to rev, to love, to enjoy ourselves.

4. (Irish) to play truant.

1997

Share Slanguage.

5. to live.

1999

J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] Never fancied Chingford Hall where that Kelly used to doss, never fancied Highams Park where she dossed now. In fact never fancied anywhere Kelly dossed.

In derivatives

dossed (adj.)

(UK drugs) intoxicated by a given drug.

2007

R. Milward Apples (2023) 13: I was staring into space with a dossed grin on my face.

In compounds

dossing lumber (n.)

(UK Und.) a bedroom, a sleeping room.

1852

Kendal Mercury 17 Apr. 6/1: The ‘donna of the cazy’ has taken a candle in her hand as a signal for a general march to the ‘dosing lumber’ (sleeping apartment).

In phrases

doss down (v.)

to fall asleep, usu. on the floor or similar temporary accommodation.

[1841		Jamieson Scottish Dict. Supp. 335/1: To doss down, v. n: To throw one’s self down, to sit down with violence].
1892		Aus. Jrnl 27 295/2: If you’re beat you can come and doss down at my place; it’s plenty big enough.
1906		H.S. Gaskell With Lord Methuen in South Africa 43: Should I spend half a precious hour in cleaning myself when I might be sleeping, or should I doss down at once and sleep where I was?
1914		E. Packe diary 11 Sept. 🌐 Eat last of bread and jam and doss down.
1917		‘Ian Hay’ Carrying On 190: You won’t have to doss down in the cemetery itself.
1924		Chambers’s Journal Jan. 31/2: We made a pretence of dossing down .
1930		A. MacAllister Murder on the Bridge 95: Dank, dark, and mouldy-smelling this morning — but not too dusty a doss-down, as 'Arry said, for a bloke as couldn't pay for a better. Not that he expected many would doss down there for a bit.
1942		J. MacLaren-Ross ‘I Had to Go Sick’ in Memoirs of the Forties (1984) 268: At last, after a lot of conjecture, we dossed down for the night.
1953		F. Brown Madball (2019) 10: [T]he punk would doss down under one of the bally platforms.
1955		P. White Tree of Man (1956) 66: Fritz had arrived one night with his swag and was allowed to doss down in a shed.
1959		K. Waterhouse Billy Liar (1962) 30: Doss down at Rowton House.
1960		(con. c.1928) D. Holman-Hunt My Grandmothers and I (1987) 166: I want a snifter before I doss down.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 107: Winos have been dossing down in there since it’s been vacated.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 20: I used to doss down in old cars: the streets in those days were littered with old bangers.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 310: [H]e is so kleiner in the kick that, if this nag [...] doesn’t score, he and Sue will be forced to doss down in their old Falcon that night.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 49: He was seventeen [...] had a bad drink problem, and needed somewhere to doss down.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

doss out (v.)

to sleep in the open air.

1883		Catholic World 36 552: To ‘doss,’ that is, sleep in a bed [...] would cost threepence. It could not be thought of. He must doss out in some one of the many makeshifts that a kind Providence and the wholesale grocers furnish for the homeless in the shape of empty sugar-hogsheads.
1886		H. Goldsmid Dottings of a Dosser 46: I was going to doss out, sir.
1893		H. Lawson ‘“Dossing Out” and “Camping”’ in Roderick (1972) 163: ‘Dossing out’ in the city and ‘camping’ in the bush are two very different things.
1907		S. Barnardo Memoirs of Dr Barnardo 73: Most chaps prefers to have a good blow-out of a supper, and to doss out on the lay rather than indoors. It ’s more cool and refreshin’, sir.