Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an act of copulation; the ejaculation of semen.

1671		‘L.B.’ New Academy of Complements 269: From London Town, / There’s lately come down / Four able Physitians [sic] that never wore Gown, / Their Physick is pleasant, their Dose it is large.
c.1680		‘The Scotch Lasses Choice’ [ballad] When Ise was lying in dying condition, / Jockey wou’d still be my best Physician; / Though the Doctor ne’r cou’d please me, / He had a Doze wou’d ease me.
1700		‘Enfield Common’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy II 270: I [...] went aside with her into a Thicket, / Then with her leave there, a dose I gave her.
1707		N. Ward London Terraefilius III 31: Nothing would qualifie the vehemencie of his Passion but a Lascivious Dose of her Sinful Affections adminster’d at the lower-end.
1842		Flash 31 July n.p.: We heard she was sick, had’nt you better give her a dose of your hot drops.
1902		D. St John Memoirs of Madge Buford 56: ‘I’ll give her another dose without coming out’ [...] he lifted me up, still spiked on his prick.
1905–07		Bawdy N.Y. State MS. n.p.: So she pulled Johny over an top of her belly, / And he gave her a dose like the one he gave Nellie.
1929		T. Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel (1930) 176: He takes it out in Poon-Tang [...] A week’s subscription free for a dose.
1959		A. Burgess Beds in the East (1972) 531: ’ ‘Oh, God, yes, when you think of the five-dollar doses in the Park, and those bloody Chinese keeps: gimme, gimme, gimme.’.
2006		Cham ‘Vitamin S’ 🎵 Mi alone love will mek you feel so sweet / [...] / One dose, three times a week.

2. earliest uses suggest as much alcohol as one can hold (and prob. more); thus take a grown man’s dose, to drink very heavily; current use is simply a single drink or sip/swig thereof.

1770		Gent.’s Mag. 560/1: To express the condition of an Honest Fellow [...] under the Effects of good Fellowship, [...] It is also said that he has [...] Got his Dose.
1801		C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 77: ‘’Tis like whiskey,’ (said Ted.) – ‘My dose last night I tuk it’.
1810		‘Dick Dock’ in A Garland of New Songs (60) 5: For he like Dick had got his dose.
1812		Vaux Memoirs in McLachlan (1964) 45: He scratch’d his head; surveyed his clothes; / Then took the other cheering dose.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London II 91: A ball of fire, ? a dose of daffy, or a blow out of black strap, will set the blue devils at defiance, give a spur to harmony, and set the spirits a jogging. [? A ball of fire—A glass of brandy].
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 18 Feb. 2/2: At this period of the day you see our old friend in the recess of the Royal getting his dose.
1853		W.G. Simms Sword and the Distaff 310: I wanted a drink myself, but it’s true, Bost, I thought you had a dose large enough for your business half an hour ago.
1862		‘Artemus Ward’ Artemus Ward, His Book 123: Still they air good natered fellers, and when they drink they take a dose big enuff for a grown person. [Ibid.] 171: Took a grown person’s dose of licker with a member of the Injianny legislater, which he urbanely in sisted on allowin me to pay for.
1890		Sporting Times 8 Mar. 2/3: Because they can’t hold their own dose of liquor properly, [they] invariably accuse other people of being squiffy last night.
1905		H.G. Wells Kipps (1952) 75: Pouring himself out a second dose of whisky.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 429: Second drink does it. One is a dose.
1927		E. Wallace Squeaker (1950) 193: Lew poured himself out a stiff dose and drank it quickly.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 309: Shout you a dose of paint at Jordie’s.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 116: She’ll tail off—ginger ’erself up with a dose of Red Liz and go on till she unwinds.
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 177: We drank our doses and I sat in a stupor the rest of the evening.
1976		R. Daley To Kill a Cop 116: She handed over his drink. [...] ‘Well, here’s looking at you,’ said Palmer. He swallowed a stiff dose.

3. a physical problem, usu. an illness, a disease.

4. (UK Und.) in fig. use of sense 2, as much money as is offered.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 90/2: If you will take the ‘dose’ for the ‘drum’ I’ll buy it, but not another stiver can you get out of me for it.

5. a punishment, usu. judicial.

6. (Ulster) a crowd of people.

1997

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