Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) to drug a person with a mixture of a narcotic (e.g. laudanum, opium) or snuff and beer before robbing them; also of animals, e.g. race-horses.

1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 97: Hocus, or hocus-pocus [...] A deleterious drug mixed with wine, etc. which enfeebles the person acted upon. Horses too are hocussed, at times.
1836		‘The Whorish Jade’ in Flash Casket 58: She soon had hocussed the old cove’s eyes, / With some laudanam put in his beer; / Then grabbed all the blunt from his kicksies’ clies.
1841		‘Ax My Eye’ Dublin Comic Songster 101: Then at night am vorking burking, / Hocussing or kening svag!
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 12 Feb. n.p.: [H]ocussed by the girls [...] and then fleeced out of every farthing.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 25 Nov. 2/5: He and Dicky the tailor, and Bandy Jack [...] ‘hocussed’ me down at Beatson’s public-house.
1849		Sam Sly 13 Jan. 4/2: [W]hen a gentleman was ‘hocussed’ in the establishment, ‘Doctor’ Green supplied the noxious drug.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 252: If you’re fond of slush you may ‘suck’ it without any danger of being ‘hocussed’.
1858		Sydney Morn. Herald 13 Aug. 2/3: The days of ‘hocussing,’ ‘burking,’ ‘sticking up,’ &c, &c , have passed [...] never to return any more.
1866		Wild Boys of London I 56/2: ‘They have hocussed and robbed him, I expect,’ he said lifting the boy’s head.
1874		M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 79: Rum? No. Eh! Laudanum! By George, he’s been hocussed!
1879		London Life 7 June 8/2: For this offence of being hocussed, Sir 'Thomas sentenced him to one month's hard labour.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 10: My tom-tart buzzed a squatter for his skin while he was in doss. She speeled from the crib and he was turned out. I think she hocussed his lush / My girl robbed a squatter of his purse while he was asleep. She left the house and he was turned out. I think she drugged his liquor.
1888		W.B. Churchward Blackbirding In The South Pacific 18: I can feel my bursting head, from the hocussing I had gone through. [Ibid.] 43: They had been hocussed in grog shanties on shore, kidnapped and sold to the ship, just as I had been at Liverpool.
1892		H. Nisbet Bushranger’s Sweetheart 108: We had to hocus their drink.
1895		Mirror of Life 27 July 11/3: [W]hat in old ring days was very often used to stupify an opponent, and that was nicotine. This deadly drug extracted from tobacco was either given in water or placed on the sponge, and a strong dose often proved fatal. Tommy Griffiths is reported to have been hocussed in this manner when he fought Paddy Gill.
1904		‘Dryblower’ ‘Thy Will Be Done’ in Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Jan. 12/1: The old dryblower who said he was hocussed and robbed of his ‘shammy’.
1905		E.W. Hornung A Thief in the Night (1992) 382: My trap for crooks and cracksmen is a bottle of hocussed whiskey.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 115/2: Doping (Racing, 1900). Hocussing rather than poisoning racehorses when about to run.
1922		E. Dyson Missing Link 🌐 Ch. xvi: The Missing Link took a good, long pull, and in less than half a minute was [...] dead to the world, a thoroughly hocussed man-monkey.
1934		O. Strange Sudden 12: The liquor he was invited to sample might be hocussed.
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 153: Hocussed liquor makes their job easy.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 133: The problems associated with over-proof and downright dangerous concoctions are also numerous in colloquial speech: [...] hocussed (drugged) grog; blow-me-skull-off; the offensive gin’s piss.

2. in general use, to adulterate.

1852

G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 232: ‘Damper’ well ‘hocussed’ with arsenic or strychnine, was laid in the way of the savages.