Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. overcome, defeated.

1818		‘Thomas Brown’ Fudge Family in Paris Letter IX 107: Alas our ruin’s fated; / All done up, and spiflicated!
1833		Observer 14 Jan. 3/5: ‘Vell, may I be spiflicated,’ exclaimed the matser chimney sweep.
1835		Sydney Herald 18 June 4/2: I’ll be spiflicated if I wern’t laughing like an undertaker in a black job, till my bread basket ached.
1837		‘The Wide Awake Club’ in Bentley’s Misc. Feb. 214: ‘Well!’ said the president, ‘may I be spiflicated, – ay, and exspiflicated, – if you have not been humbugging us, Pounce, with a pretty piece of bam!’.
1850		F.E. Smedley Frank Fairlegh (1878) 130: Well, I thought it was to be a regular case of Herod, and that there would be at least half-a-dozen of them spifflicated, but they all managed to save their bacon, except Shrimp – one of the wheels went over him and broke him somewhere.
1888		Sportsman (London) 18 Jan. 3/5: Nothing was too bad for poor me; I was to be killed, eaten, smiflicated.
1910		El Paso Herald (TX) 26 Mar. 26/5: The Duke was standing over him, quivering with rage and inviting him to get up and be ‘spifflicated’.
1913		Dover Exp. (Kent) 16 May 6/5: When that argument was spiflicated, they said [etc.].

2. unkempt, messy.

1838

T. Haliburton Clockmaker II 127: My hair is all spiflicated too, like a mop.

3. of an object, broken.

1872

Hastings & St Leonards Obs. (Sussex) 30 Mar. 2/5: ‘I’ve broken the crown of my best bonnet.’ [...] ‘My back is right soar and Sairey’s 3s. 9d. bonney is holley spiflicated’.

4. tricked, defrauded, fooled.

1855

‘Joskin’s Vocab.’ in Yokel’s Preceptor 30: Spifflicated, gammoned, swindled, duped.

5. drunk.

1853		Newcastle Guardian 23 July 3/5: Saturday was the roughest night, in the drinking way, which has been experienced in Glasgow for a long time [...] the enture population of Glasgow was ‘spiflicated’.
1854		Dly Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 28 June 3/2: ‘Oh I’m spifflicated! How are you? [...] Let’s take a drink.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 309: If I signed your release, the both of you’d be spiflicated by noon.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 14 Oct. 4/8: The spiflicated cabby’s moke / Got here as barriers slammed.
1906		‘O. Henry’ ‘Memoirs of a Yellow Dog’ in Four Million (1915) 115: Why, he uss nature’s Own Remedy. He gets spifflicated.
1910		‘O. Henry’ ‘A Bird of Bagdad’ in Strictly Business (1915) 190: I was spiflicated.
1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 139: He had been Snooted for Fair, Plastered, Ossified, Benzoated, Piped, Pickled, Spifflicated, Corned, Raddled, Obfuscated, Soused and Orr-Eyed.
1928		M. Prenner ‘Sl. Synonyms for “Drunk”’ in AS IV:2 102: basted [...] spifflicated, squiffed, stewed, stuccoed, tanked, three sheets in the wind, tight, tipsy, tuned, woozy.
1931		A. Hardin ‘Volstead English’ in AS VII:2 88: Terms referring to the state of intoxication: [...] Verbs: Spifflicated.
1946		D. MacDonagh Happy as Larry Act IV: He’s trying to make an utterance / Although he’s more than spiflicated.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 27: ‘Sylvia dead drunk, paralysed, spifflicated, iced to the eye-brows,’ I said harshly.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 202: Spifflicated Drunk.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 228: ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘Sit here and get spifflicated.’.