Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. of places or weather, dull, gloomy.

1727		Mrs Delany letter 29 Feb. Life and Corr. (1861) I 159: The town is mussy, though very full.
1754		A. Murphy Gray’s-Inn Journal No. 80: Sunday the most muzzy Day in the year [OED].
1817		‘Naval Officer’ Post Captain : And muzzy tars, in order’s spite, / With boist’rous ditties scar’d the night.
1821		Coleridge in Blackwood’s Mag. X 253: Here have I been sitting, this whole long-lagging, muzzy, mizly morning .

2. (also muzzied) of people, vague, befuddled, confused.

1730		J. Miller Humours of Oxford I i: Your Fellows of Colleges are a parcel of Sad, Muzzy, Humdrum, Lazy, Ignorant old Caterpillars.
1800		G. Colman Yngr Heir at Law I ii: If I hadn’t got out to take the reins [...] I should have been as muzzy as a methodist parson.
1812		G. Colman Yngr ‘The Lady of the Wreck’ Poetical Vagaries 104: The muzzy Porter, Con Macguire, Roused his blown carcase from the fire.
1833		‘The Christening of Little Joey’ in Corinthian in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 45: With whom came muzzy Tom, / And sneaking Snip, the boozer.
1868		Rockhampton Bull. (Qld) 1 Oct. 3/2: It was but a simple and primitive socioety [...] when men caled each other Addlehead, Baldhead, Barebones, Bitch [...] Chisels, Dolt [...] Fogey [...] Gander [...] Maggot, Mangy, Muff, Muzzy.
1885		‘’Arry [...] at the Grosvenor Gallery’ Punch 10 Jan. 24/2: Yes, it sounds tommy rot, I’m aware, and you’ll think I’ve gone muzzy perhaps.
1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 187: He would not venture open intimidation of Weech now, with Josh half muzzy.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 215: mussy, disordered and dirty. ‘You dress looks mussy’.
1920		Marvel 28 Aug. 15: A couple of punches on the head that made Sid feel a bit muzzy.
1959		A. Sinclair My Friend Judas (1963) 19: I was pooped, all muzzy.
1960		A. Burgess Doctor Is Sick (1972) 71: ‘Tomorrow morning we want you to be nice and muzzy’ [...] She emptied a generous helping of tablets out of her bottle.

3. (also muz) drunk; thus personified as Mrs Muz in cit. 1815.

1770		Foote Lame Lover in Works (1799) II 60: Picking our teeth, after a damned muzzy dinner at Boodle’s.
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 131: Long Ned, and dust-cart Chloe [...] With whom came muzzy Tom, / And sneaking Snip, the boozer.
1791		‘Song’ in New Vocal Enchantress 33: Tipsy, dizzy, muzzy, sucky, groggy, muddled, / Bosky, blind as Chloe, mops and brooms and fuddled.
1793		Bacchanalian Mag. 16: Dan Jove was oft muz, Comus a sot.
1801		C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 128: Your delicate ladies pretend, you know, / As how they never get muzzy or so.
1815		‘Thinks I to Myself’ Sailor’s Vocal Repository 5: So poor Mrs. Muz, alas! / Who censur’d for ever Miss Mottle / For looking so oft’ in the Glass / Forgot that she look’d in the Bottle.
1822		C. Dibdin Yngr Larks of Logic, Tom and Jerry III i: There was one of us muzzy.
1829		J.B. Buckstone Billy Taylor I i: We’ll be muzzy, too.
1833		Cruikshank & Wight Sun. in London 77: Mizzle home. Wife sings out. Give her a settler. And so turn in; – rather muzzy.
1841		‘Oh! Sarah, You Wixen’ Dublin Comic Songster 104: I’ll wait till my Sarah from the gin shop comes home, / Quite lucky comes home, quite muzzy comes home.
1849		Thackeray Pendennis I 45: Fact and fiction reeled together in his muzzy, whiskified brain.
1850		Fast Man 10:1 n.p.: [T]he lady got quite muzzy with Peppermint Jack’s present.
1856		J. Strang Glasgow and Its Clubs 200: Some of the members [...] were not in a condition to retire to their homes without the aid of companions who, if their heads were less muzzied, possessed more stable legs.
1863		G.A. Sala Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous 169: Squire Bartholomew [...] was certainly more than three parts Muzzy.
1866		Vermont Transcript (St Albans, VT) 9 Nov. 2/4: She is always more or less tipsy, she’s muzzy now.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) VIII 1601: ‘Yes I do sir, I likes good ale.’ — Ale — I thought little or no chance of making her mussy on that. [Ibid.] IX 1890: In another hour Sophy had gamahuched me, taken my libation in her mouth, and departed muzzy enough.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 51: Muzzy, intoxicated.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Nov. 1/1: The muzzy-headed dead-beat reeled along to a carriage and saluted the occupants as (hic), ‘blankers’.
1906		Salt Lake City (UT) 30 Mar. 4/5: He is [...] happy, winey, groggy, muzzy .
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Concerning a Steeplechase Rider’ in Three Elephant Power 107: They [...] are either ‘half-muzzy’ or shaky according as they have taken too much or too little.
1925		(ref. to 1900s) E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 247: I stumbled along [...] feeling more muzzy than before, for it was night and I had been into another ‘boozer’ or two.
1931		B. Lubbock Bully Hayes 58: The sheriff’s that muzzy he don’ know whether he’s ashore or afloat.
1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act I: lewis (aloud to himself, with a muzzy wonder): Good God! Have I been drinking at the same table as a bloody Kaffir?
1947		N. Streatfeild Grass in Piccadilly 227: Peter was far too muzzy with drink.
1952		‘Josephine Tey’ Singing Sands 56: Not enough [whisky] to make him drunk but quite enough to make him muzzy.

4. blurred, indistinct.

1836

M. Scott Cruise of the Midge II 190: Having a sort of muzzy recollection of his previous mistake, he set himself with drunken gravity to take an observation.