Green’s Dictionary of Slang

boozing n.

also boosing, busing
[booze v.]

1. drinking; see also bousing n.

[Ire]Head Eng. Rogue I 36: Most part of the night we spent in Boozing, pecking rumly or wapping.
[UK]N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 228: When the Mauts and Rum Culls have recruited our Store, / We’ll return to our Boozing. O Pity the Poor.
[UK]W. King York Spy 29: This is an incomparable Provocative for Boozing.
[Ire]‘The Rakes of Stony Batter’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 339: Nancy, Doll, & Susan, / To please their sweethearts well, sometimes will go a boozing.
[UK]Hants. Chron. 23 Apr. 4/3: Immediately after dinner, as soon as the cloth is removed, the boozing begins.
Cobbett’s Wkly Political Reg. 14 Oct. 2/1: They [...] intended to set the exampleof boozing and gormanidizing and carousing.
[UK]Thackeray Eng. Humorists 198: All that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing [...] enlarged the waistcoats of the men.
[UK]J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 132: Without doubt Sunday is recognized by the undertaking fraternity as a day for boozing and drunkenness.
[Aus]Dead Bird (Sydney) 21 Sept. 1/2: I have bee convicted of most everything [...] from boosing to burglary.
W. Sickert Westminster Gazette 20 Mar. 7: Much too much has been made of ‘drink,’ and ‘lessons,’ and ‘sodden,’ and ‘boozing’ in relation to the picture by Degas.
[US]Ade Artie (1963) 101: No more chasin’ around at nights, no blowin’ my stuff against a lot o’ dubs and no more boozin’.
[US]Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 126: Next time ’t I chew the rag with you about cuttin’ up in the streets an’ boozin’, you want to listen.
[Aus]H. Lawson ‘That Pretty Girl on the Army’ in Roderick (1972) 481: There was much beer boozing.
[US]C. McKay Home to Harlem 213: Boozing and poking and rooting around, jolly enough all right, but not altogether contented.
[Aus]N. Lindsay Redheap (1965) 48: ‘He’s onter me for boozin’. Sees me comin’ out o’ Cassidy’s full as a tick. Eighteen long uns I had’ .
[US](con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 747: All the boozing and things he’d done in his life, they had sure backfired on him.
[US]N. Algren Never Come Morning (1988) 139: The voice was hoarse from a hundred cells. Or from boozing. It was hard to tell.
[UK]F. Norman Fings I i: Girls Thinkin’ abaht boozin’ / Boys Thinkin’ abaht whorin’.
[UK]R. Rendell Best Man To Die (1981) 25: At his age boozing didn’t have much visible effect.
[US]A. Maupin Tales of the City (1984) 63: A girl like that was gettin’ down . . . boogying and boozing.
[US]B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 8: His boozin’ never particularly bothered me.
[UK]K. Sampson Powder 96: Even James was restless, edgy from the non-stop smoking, boozing and snorting of the last few days.
[UK]Indep. Rev. 22 Jan. 3: There was a lot of boozing and a lot of brawling.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

[UK]A Canting Academy, or the Pedlar’s-French Dict. 112: Whoring and Drinking consumes all the Money, Wapping and Busing mills all the Lowyer.
[UK]J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 346: Two or three of his boozing companions [...] took him under their protction.
[UK]B. Patterson Life in the Ranks 130: The canteen is the great centre of attraction to the boosing fraternity.
[UK]Clarkson & Richardson Police! 322: Drunken thief ... Boozing gonoph.
[UK]E. Pugh Harry The Cockney 231: It’s a boozing club, really.
[US](con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 33: You and your godless socialistic boozin’ ways.
[UK]D. Bolster Roll On My Twelve 37: By the time we were put ashore it had [...] got a crack down through the friar’s boozing-party.

In compounds

boozing crib (n.) (also boozing den) [crib n.1 (1)]

(UK Und.) a public house used by villains.

[UK]London Eve. Standard 29 Oct. 3/3: The piece opens with Clifford’s determination to quit ‘the boozing crib’ of his old protectrix.
[UK]Leeds Times 4 June 6/2: The god of thieving [...] the idol of unnumbered votaries in many a ‘Flash Ken’ and many a ‘Boozing Crib’.
[UK]Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 49/1: Bill lived in a small house in the next street, quite convenient to all the ‘flash boozing cribs’ in that quarter.
[UK]W. Hooe Sharping London 34: Boozing Crib, a low public-house.
[UK]‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 196: Somebody has been rough-housing [...] Looks like a boozing den after a thick night.
[US]News Rev. (Roeburg, OR) 17 July 4/6: A fair face and a pretty leg enliven any boozing den.
boozing-cull (n.) [cull n.1 (4)]

(UK Und.) a drunkard.

G.L. Amorous Gallant’s Tongue n.p.: A Buesing Coll Drunkard.