Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a hangover cure that consists of drinking more alcohol, usu. the same alcohol that created the hangover; occas. ext. to drugs.

1546		J. Heywood Proverbs I Ch. xi: I praie the leat me and my felow have / A heare of the dog that bote us last nyght. / And bitten were we both to the brayne aright.
1616		Times’ Whistle Satire 5 line 1859: An immoderate drunkenesse procurde, Must by ‘a haire of the same dog’ be curde.
1639		J. Taylor Crabtree Lectures 133: Every day foxed [...] and next morning you are then a little crop-sick, and then to cure your squeezy stomach, you get a haire with the same dog [...] a cup of the same wine burnt or mild that you dranke raw over night .
1652		W. Child in Wardroper (1969) 209: But be sure overnight / If this dog do you bite, / You take it henceforth for a warning: / Soon as out of your bed, / To settle your head / Take a hair of his tail in the morning.
1673		M. Stevenson Norfolk Drollery 82: Ropes that wou’d meet thr ground can’t draw ye to’t / And yet a hair of the same dog wou’d do’t.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 678: Will he take a hair of the same dog?
1709		N. Ward Rambling Fuddle-Caps 4: We leap’d out of Bed with a strong Appetitus, To swallow a Hair of the Dog that had bit us.
1738		Swift Polite Conversation 74: Why, indeed, it is apt to Fox one; but our Way is, to take a Hair of the same Dog next Morning.
1825		T.C. Croker Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1862) 211: ‘A hair of the dog that bit him,’ is the common recommendation of the old toper to a young one on the morning after a debauch.
1838		D. Jerrold Men of Character II 23: He! He! a hair of the dog that bit you. That is, if a great deal of brandy did the mischief last night, a little drop of the same may bring about a cure this morning.
1843		J. Hewlett College Life II 47: The squire [...] insisted on his guests taking ‘a hair of the dog that had bitten them,’ to restore the equilibrium of the stomach and brain.
1847		J.E. Walsh Ireland Sixty Years Ago (1885) 60: In the morning he was, of course, deadly sick, but his host prescribed, ‘a hair of the old dog,’ that is, a glass of raw spirits.
1854		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Jan. 21/2: A predeliction for dog’s nose or schnaps vulgarly called a hair of the dog that bit you.
1866		H.L. Williams Gay Life in N.Y. 71: He [...] who in vulgar parlance had been using ‘the hair of the dog to cure the bite’.
1866		Sportsman 13 Oct. 2/1: Notes on News [...] ‘A hair of the (spirituous) dog that bit you’ is [...] said to be a good cure for ‘hot coppers’ [...] the morning after a ‘wet’ night.
1866		Vermont Transcript (St Albans, VT) 9 Nov. 2/4: They were all a little corned [...] and some regularly groggy [...] and then they took the hair of the dog that bit them.
1873		Sl. Dict. 185: Hair of the dog a ‘modest quencher,’ taken the morning following a debauch. Originally a ‘hair of the dog that bit you.’ This is very old, and seems to show that homœopathy is by no means new, so far as topers, at all events, are concerned.
1876		Sheffield Indep. 23 Dec. 15/3: Feeling assured that a ‘hair of the dog that had bitten him’ would be almost a necessary to him [...] handed him the bottle.
1883		Sweet & Knox On a Mexican Mustang, Through Texas 230: Sez the doctor, ‘Take a hair of the dog,’ sez he.
1884		Sporting Times 2 Feb. 1/3: There is nothing like the hair of the dog that bit you.
1890		H. Nisbet ‘Bail Up!’ 117: I have no recollection of going to bed and had to take a ‘hair of the dog’ this morning.
1905		Marvel III:55 4: Cham’s frightfully heady stuff. A hair of the dog that bit you, eh, Archie, old boy? I’ll ring for a bottle.
1911		Goodwin’s Wkly (UT) 15 Apr. 10/3: I was out with the other young blades last night; and a hair of the dog that bit me — you know the rest.
1929		D. Parker ‘You Were Perfectly Fine’ in Parker (1943) 182: The hair of the mastiff that bit me? [...] Oh, no, thank you.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 13: He began to consider himself a finished Booze Artist, not knowing how he carried his grog [...] since he learnt the trick of taking a hair of the dog.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 103: The cotton-mouthed hangover became America’s occupational disease; hair-of-the-dog was adopted as the national morning-after beverage.
1953		R.S. Prather ‘Double Take’ in Best of Manhunt (2019) [ebook] I was Shell Scott, The Bloodshot Eye, and I needed a hair of the horse that bit me.
1953		F. Brown Madball (2019) 48: This hangover [...] won’t start to go away until I [...] force myself to take a drink of dog hair.
1958		H.E. Bates Darling Buds of May (1985) 43: Hair of the dog I should say.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 56: I thought of the nearly naked inside of my stomach. Maybe a little hair of the dog would help dress it up.
1963		C. Mann ‘Stiff Luck for the Colonel’ in Three Stories 41: Let me prescribe for you. Just this once. A mouthful of hair. Come now—just one. Just two little fingers!
1965		F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 80–1: When you’ve got a hangover, the Aussie, may God bless his endeavours, would offer you a drink to liven you up. What he calls the hair of the dog that bit you.
1970		H.E. Bates A Little of What You Fancy (1985) 522: Hair of the dog was Pop’s favourite remedy when you’d had one or two over the eight.
1977		D. Muller Whitey 21: ‘Such a bab-a-laas,’ he said [...] ‘My mommy will give you some of the blood of that dog that bit you last night.’.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 26: Most of the lads were slipping in and out of the church for a hair of the dog.
1991		R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 81: I might even have a hair of the dog back at that pub.
1999		Indep. Rev. 9 July 14: Suggs sips his hair of the dog.
2006		P. Carey Theft 75: I was in no way surprised that my brother required the hair of the dog before he faced the galleries.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] I downed my shot and chased it with my beer. The hair of the dog made me feel a bit better.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 101: ‘Davey Waters?’ McCoy nodded. ‘And the hair of the dog that bit my arse last night’.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 62: Hair of the dog my white ass, he thought.