Green’s Dictionary of Slang

sozzled adj.

drunk.

1833		A. Greene Life and Adventures of Dr Dodimus Duckworth II 176: He was seldom downright drunk; but was often [...] a little sizzled.
1890		Bird o’ Freedom 1 Jan. 6/5: He gets so heartily sosselled at times that he can’t tell heads from tails or one coin from another.
1904		Ade True Bills 26: The last caller was Sozzled.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Nov. 11/1: Haven’t you in your time / Seen some wild soul advance, / Noisy, hilarious, / Palpably ‘in a trance’/ And likewise ‘paralyt- / Ic,’ ‘potty,’ ‘on his ear,’ / ‘Full,’ ‘sozzled,’ ‘bosky,’ ‘tanked,’ / ‘Boozed,’ ‘hitting up a tear’?
1908		N.Z. Truth 20 June 6/2: He had seen the lady sosselled in Barbadoes-street.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Sept. 17/4: As he returned, gratified, if not actually sozzled, he heard a crash.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 54: Motty was under the surface. Completely sozzled.
1932		Narromine News (NSW) 22 July 6/3: When a man wants to fight a policeman you can wager your best pair of ‘Prince Albert’s’ that he is as sozzled as a wet hen.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 226: Every time you get sozzled, you get a break [...] You better stick to malted milks.
1934		D.L. Sayers Nine Tailors (1984) 245: He kept on shoving drinks at Deacon and [...] by the time he got to London he was pretty genuinely sozzled.
1939		P. Hamilton To The Public Danger 51: He sounds sozzled to me.
1944		J. Cary Horse’s Mouth (1948) 43: Anyone would think you were sozzled.
1950		R. Service ‘McClusky’s Nell’ Rhymes of a Roughneck 14: Them fifty sozzled sourdoughs uttered fifty happy sighs.
1953		J. Thompson Alcoholics (1993) 110: She [...] doesn’t give a damn about anything so long as she can stay sozzled.
1958		(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 282: I am not tight or plastered, polluted, greased, blind, sozzled, ossified or atomized.
1965		J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 44: They both got sozzled on champagne.
1970		H.E. Bates A Little of What You Fancy (1985) 469: Hopelessly tiddly. Sozzled.
1976		(con. 1940s) J. Wolveridge Ain’t it Grand 91: I was well sozzled.
1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 60: Words for drunk (beside ‘boozed’) are ‘sozzled,’ ‘tight’ and ‘pissed’.
1981		P. Barton Bastards I Have Known 27: The by-now-sozzle-eyed Head walked in the door.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 86: Sozzled, I sat there and just stared at my barbecuing fingers.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 88: Besozzled middle management types will be closing in on the unfortunate little darling from the office they’ve had their eye on all year.
1999		Guardian G2 11 June 10: The vodka gets you sozzled.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 236: A brace full of whisky bottles lodged in a box would [...] get him quietly sozzled.
2008		R. Fortey Dry Store Room No. 1 150: He had the deliberate delivery of the habitually sozzled, a series of short barks separated by significant pauses.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 96: I’m not used to after noon drinking [...] I feel a wee bit sozzled.
2012		R. Milward Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 184: [S]ozzled self-hatred settling in.
2013		Mail & Guardian (SA) 12 July 🌐 There are no sozzled chats in an exotic bar late at night.
2019		G. Disher Peace 26: Hirsch later reconstructed the workings of Brenda Flann’s sozzled brain.
2020		Times 3 Oct. 🌐 [headline] Only a plonker would call time on sozzled bonking.