boozing n.
1. drinking; see also bousing n.
Eng. Rogue I 36: Most part of the night we spent in Boozing, pecking rumly or wapping. | ||
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. | ||
York Spy 29: This is an incomparable Provocative for Boozing. | ||
‘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. | ||
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. | ||
Eng. Humorists 198: All that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing [...] enlarged the waistcoats of the men. | ||
Wilds of London (1881) 132: Without doubt Sunday is recognized by the undertaking fraternity as a day for boozing and drunkenness. | ||
Dead Bird (Sydney) 21 Sept. 1/2: I have bee convicted of most everything [...] from boosing to burglary. | ||
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. | ||
Artie (1963) 101: No more chasin’ around at nights, no blowin’ my stuff against a lot o’ dubs and no more boozin’. | ||
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. | ||
‘That Pretty Girl on the Army’ in Roderick (1972) 481: There was much beer boozing. | ||
Home to Harlem 213: Boozing and poking and rooting around, jolly enough all right, but not altogether contented. | ||
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’ . | ||
(con. 1920s) Studs Lonigan (1936) 747: All the boozing and things he’d done in his life, they had sure backfired on him. | Judgement Day in||
Never Come Morning (1988) 139: The voice was hoarse from a hundred cells. Or from boozing. It was hard to tell. | ||
Fings I i: Girls Thinkin’ abaht boozin’ / Boys Thinkin’ abaht whorin’. | ||
Best Man To Die (1981) 25: At his age boozing didn’t have much visible effect. | ||
Tales of the City (1984) 63: A girl like that was gettin’ down . . . boogying and boozing. | ||
Rivethead (1992) 8: His boozin’ never particularly bothered me. | ||
Powder 96: Even James was restless, edgy from the non-stop smoking, boozing and snorting of the last few days. | ||
Indep. Rev. 22 Jan. 3: There was a lot of boozing and a lot of brawling. |
2. attrib. use of sense 1.
A Canting Academy, or the Pedlar’s-French Dict. 112: Whoring and Drinking consumes all the Money, Wapping and Busing mills all the Lowyer. | ||
Seven Curses of London 346: Two or three of his boozing companions [...] took him under their protction. | ||
Life in the Ranks 130: The canteen is the great centre of attraction to the boosing fraternity. | ||
Police! 322: Drunken thief ... Boozing gonoph. | ||
Harry The Cockney 231: It’s a boozing club, really. | ||
(con. 1900s–10s) 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 33: You and your godless socialistic boozin’ ways. | ||
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
see bousing-ken n.
(UK Und.) a bottle.
Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Rum-hopper, tip us presently a Boozing-cheat of Rum-gutlers, c. Drawer fill us presently a Bottle of the best Canary. | ||
Triumph of Wit. | ||
New Canting Dict. | ||
, , , | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. | |
, , | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
(UK Und.) a public house used by villains.
London Eve. Standard 29 Oct. 3/3: The piece opens with Clifford’s determination to quit ‘the boozing crib’ of his old protectrix. | ||
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’. | ||
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. | ||
Sharping London 34: Boozing Crib, a low public-house. | ||
Bulldog Drummond 196: Somebody has been rough-housing [...] Looks like a boozing den after a thick night. | ||
News Rev. (Roeburg, OR) 17 July 4/6: A fair face and a pretty leg enliven any boozing den. |
(UK Und.) a drunkard.
Amorous Gallant’s Tongue n.p.: A Buesing Coll Drunkard. |
see bousing-ken n.