Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. wine.

1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Jan. 4/7: Let us now visit the Ski’s shops, where of wino we’ll have a sup.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 115: Wir lying thaire in the kip, n wi order a boatil ay rid wino.

2. (orig. US, also vino) an alcoholic, usu. living in poverty.

1915		Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 13 June 19/3: Wineo — A wine bum, known on Pacafic [sic] coast, especially in California.
1927		C. Samolar ‘Argot of the Vagabond’ in AS II:9 389: Rum-dumb is a condition of hopeless intoxication. A wino was a good-for-nothing vag who used to frequent the wineries and became rum-dumb on the wine he begged. A barrel-house bum was his equivalent in the cities.
1939		‘Hotel Sl.’ AS XIV:3 Oct. 240/2: wino Drunken person, often rum dumb.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 19: An old wino dragging a pair of mottled suspenders to the floor.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 162: The winos hang out on 5th Street.
1961		H. Ellison Rockabilly (1963) 174: The roughest audience of all – makeout artists, hookers, tourists, winos.
1966		G. Fletcher Down Among the Meths Men n.p.: The vinos or winos put on a better show.
1972		J. McNeill Old Familiar Juice (1973) 110: Yer a warb...a chat...a wino...yer a vagrant!
1977		E. Bunker Animal Factory 2: A deputy roughly guiding the befuddled winos so their chains didn’t entangle.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 37: The old wino lay there, sleeping blissfully on.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 147: Gangs and drug dealers and addicts and winos, that’s all.
1994		D. Lehane A Drink Before the War 9: A wino on the sidewalk supported himself with one hand on a bottle.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 499: He gave the wino a two-pound coin.
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] Dorks with long hair [...] dressed like park winos.
2007		C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 87: Keeping company with winos and tweakers at bottle clubs and all-night donut joints.
2009		T. Black Gutted 62: Do I look like I’m taking the piss, boy? Always the same with you fucking winos.
2011		D.D. Brazill ‘Lady and the Gimp’ in Pulp Ink [ebook] I feel about as welcome as a wino in a Wine Bar.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 219: ‘Smells like a wino’s drawers in here’.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] ‘And this wino’s trolley dash of yours, you’re doing it for one reason only’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 319: I paid twelve winos to mutter and belch.

3. attrib. use of sense 1.

1930		(con. 1890) G. Milburn ‘A Convention Song’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 26: There was Pete the Shive from Slapjack’s dive, / And Wino Bill from Cal.
1951		Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 114: [...] in greasy wino pants with a frayed furlined jacket. [Ibid.] 233: Old bum Neal Cassady the Barber [...] down-crashing in wino alley nights.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 347: ‘She told me she hates your wino guts’.
1991		D. Gaines Teenage Wasteland 105: Girls I grew up with became junk whores, turning tricks down by the wino hotels near the train station.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 111: Check the wino elves — they’re digging on Barb.
2013		T. Black ‘Too Close to Call’ in Killing Time in Las Vegas [ebook] He was clean — clean as any wino crackhead motherfucker.

4. (US campus) a wine connoisseur.

2003

Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 8: wino – one who loves and has a great knowledge of wine.