Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) very drunk; intensified as drunker than a boiled owl; thus boiled owl, a drunk person; note one-off extrapolation in cit. 1900.

1770		Gent.’s Mag. 560: As drunk as an Owl.
1793		Sporting Mag. July II 243/1: Comparisons of Drunkenness. As drunk as an owl.
1815		‘The Sailor’s Frolic’ in A Garland of New Songs 7: And when you come home you’re drunk as an owl.
1820		‘The Sailor’s Frolic’ in Goldfinch Song Book 19: [as cit. 1815].
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes III 61: Many a gudeman [...] without the guardianship of his thrifty dame would have returned drunk as an owl.
1862		‘Artemus Ward’ Artemus Ward, His Book 84: Obsarve how Iargo got Casheo drunk as a biled owl on corn whisky in order to karry out his sneekin desines.
1864		G.A. Sala Quite Alone III 99: She’s a regular devil that woman, and four nights out of six she’s as lushy as a boiled owl.
1869		W.M. Howell Diggings and the Bush 35: The others are drunk as owls.
1877		‘A High Private’ Man who was not a Colonel 9: He would get drunk as an owl.
1881		Knoxville Dly Chron. (TN) 11 Nov. 1/5: Ven I got home I don’t can tell if I vas a saw-mill or a brass band I vas dvice so drunk as a boiled owl.
1882		Fifeshire Jrnl 2 Nov. 3/5: ‘[G]allivanting about the streets tight as a boiled owl’.
1883		Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, NJ) 22 Sept. 4/2: ‘Drunk as a scrambled owl; ever see an Oberlin stuident on a tare?’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 July 12/1: Sixty minutes later he was lying under a form in a certain low pub. ‘drunk as a boiled owl.’.
1890		Kipling ‘The Story of the Gadbsys’ in Soldiers Three (1907) 163: It’ll make me as drunk as an owl.
[1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 22 Nov. 2/4: [He] turned up at the offis next morning like a boiled owl. ‘You must have been tanked last night,’ said our champion grumbler].
1891		Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 7 Mar. n.p.: ‘You were in Fleet Street [...] as tight as a boiled owl’.
1892		Daily News 12 Dec. in Ware (1909) 40/2: ‘Drunk as a boiled owl’ is a gross libel upon a highly respectable teetotal bird which, even in its unboiled state, drinks nothing stronger than rain-water.
1900		Sporting Times 2 June 1/3: But, obfuscated owl that he was, he overshot the pawnbroker’s.
1907		‘O. Henry’ Trimmed Lamp (1916) 35: Babbitt was in last night as full as a boiled owl.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 246/1: Tight as a biled (or boiled) owl (American). Completely drunk.
1913		Van Loan ‘The Mexican Marvel’ in Lucky Seventh (2004) 197: He’s drunk! [...] Stewed as an owl!
1914		R. Tressell Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1955) 450: ’Oo should come fallin’ up the bloody stairs but ole Buncer, drunk as a howl!
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald III (1960) 239: Fellow who had the rooms [...] He’s drunk as an owl, though.
1921		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 8 Mar. [synd. col.] It used to be along Broadway a man over indulged and wanted to confess he would explode, ‘Boys, I’m tighter than a boiled owl.’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 293: And one time he led him the rounds of Dublin and, by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till he brought him home as drunk as a boiled owl.
1923		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 26 July [synd. col.] A flock of boiled owls staggered from a club.
1929		A.J. Barr Let Tomorrow Come 220: ‘Drunk!’ ‘Like a owl.’.
1931		Lancs. Eve. Post 23 Mar. : Here is a man [...] who has so saturated himself with drink [...] that he looks like a boiled owl.
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 167: Gussie has been on a bender. He’s as tight as an owl.
1935		Times (Shreveport, LA) 5 Oct. 4/6: He’s in the butler’s pantry, tight as a boiled owl.
1936		R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 228: He is ‘drunk as a biled owl’.
1937		J. Tully Bruiser 219: I remember lookin’ at him, and me drunk as an owl on sacred wine.
1946		D. Stivens Courtship of Uncle Henry 25: Four of the pedos got drunk as owls.
1952		‘Josephine Tey’ Singing Sands 5: He looked up [...] and said disgustedly: ‘Tight as an owl!’.
1953		Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 175: A man who is very much inebriated is said to be drunker than a fiddler’s bitch, drunker than a boiled owl.
1960		(con. 1930s) R. Barber Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968) 294: They worked matinees drunk as two hoot owls.
1961		C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 115: She was as tight as a boiled owl when she reported for duty.
1962		(con. WWII) J.O. Killens And Then We Heard The Thunder (1964) 377: One of them was drunk as an owl.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 25: Why he’s drunk as a hoot-owl.
1971		Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves 83: While tight as an owl.
1981		G.V. Higgins Rat on Fire (1982) 83: You’re as drunk as a hoot owl.