Green’s Dictionary of Slang

corned adj.

drunk.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1793		W. Macready Irishman in London II i: I’m quite up — I’m almost corn’d.
1808		Jamieson Etym. Dict. Scot. Lang. n.p.: The lads are weel corned .
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		R. Waln Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd series 23: ‘I warrant the bang-ups have crooked their elbows,’ quoth Tom [...] ‘drunk as wheelbarrows, — fuddled, — and corned’.
1823		Mass. Spy 22 Dec. n.p.: ‘Pretty well corned’ and ‘up to anything,’ / Drunk as a lord, and happy as a king.
1833		A. Greene Life and Adventures of Dr Dodimus Duckworth II 176: He was seldom downright drunk; but was often [...] pretty well corned.
1835		A.B. Longstreet Georgia Scenes (1848) 161: Hardy was ‘royally corned’ (but not falling).
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 19 Mar. n.p.: They kept up [...] pouring spirits down, at every tavern [so they] were rather flabberdegasted, hot, how-came-you-so, cornered [sic], three-sheets-in-the-wind, half-seas-over.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 3 Dec. n.p.: The ‘swells’ [...] burst in on the old cocks, who were all well corned.
1842		Sydney Free Press 19 Mar. 3/5: The Boston Post has the following good joke of a ‘hard case’ who was accustomed to going home late at night in a ‘corned’state.
1844		Stirling Obs. 19 Sept. 3/3: [from US press] Drunkeness Defined — [...] high-corned, cocked, shaved, disguised, jammed, [...] smashed, [...] snubbed, [...] battered [...] soaked, [...] bruised.
1851		‘Bingo’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 61: About forty men, ‘pretty well corned, and up to everything,’ entered the liquor room.
1853		Bell’s Life in Sydney 16 July 2/6: The Tartar [...] said he was too Corny to play Devon.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 17/2: Jem, who, being pretty well corned, readily accepted, and called the side-of-a-house out to her place on the floor.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 11 Mar. 2/1: An ancient soubrette [...] cannot be supposed to be ‘well preserved’ because she is a little ‘corned’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Jan. 10/2: Being so excited with joy or depressed with sorrow [...] the bridegroom got properly corned, and there was nothing left for the fair young lady to do but to bundle her newly-made lord and master on to the floor of his cart, and drive him home.
1891		Salina Dly Republican (KS) 25 Sept. 3/2: Corned — applied to a man who is fairly drunk; synonymous with ‘soaked,’ ‘pickled’.
1894		Dundee Courier 2 Jan. 5/6: ‘What ails that man?’ [...] ‘Should call him pretty well corned,’ replied the country youth.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 5 May 4/7: The poor, ill-used husband, who stands [...] at the head of the stairs at 3 a.m., and watches his well ‘corned’ wife stumbling up.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 65: By the time that he lands into his Happy Clothes of an Evening he is fairly well Corned.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 10 Feb. 3/7: The half-corned cyclist denied his identity.
1914		E. O’Neill Movie Man in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 201: Everyone in this bush-league army seems all corned up tonight except me.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 60: He was a brilliant Orator, even when Corned.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Romance in the Roaring Forties’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 40: By this time one and all present [...] are somewhat corned.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.