Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to drink.

1577		Misogonus in Farmer (1906) II v: Is this an honest sport, To be revelling and boozing after such a lewd fashion?
1655		Mercurius Fumigosus 40 28 Feb.–7 Mar. 316: They fight, are friends, and so together Booze.
1676		A Newgate ex-prisoner A Warning for House-Keepers 5: But when we come to the Whitt, / Our darbies to behold / And for to take our Penitency, / And boose the water cold.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 54: Bouze on, and see what will come on’t.
1691		‘The Time-server’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 197: One that doth defie the Crosier and the Crown, / But yet can bouze with Blades that Carrouze / Whilst Pottle-pots tumble down.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 239: [They] would lustily booze it, and sing and dance all Weathers.
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 25: Rumbooze thou shalt booze thy fill.
1765		H. Howard Choice Spirits Museum 18: The Toper keps his Seat, Resolv’d to booze away the Night.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 403: Let us drink all night, / Boose it about to drown all sorrow.
1773		Hiberian Jrnl (Dublin) 26 Apr. 4/1: We booz’d away, concealed from Sal, And roared for Joy.
1777		Sheridan School For Scandal Epilogue: While good Sir Peter boozes with the squire.
1786		Caledonian Mercury 20 Sept. 2/4: Mayhap, said Sir Timothy, I shall find them boozing, or else courting.
1788		‘The Irish Schoolmaster’ Banquet of Thalia 7: To booze away, Old Pat would say, / And the devil take to-morrow.
c.1790		‘The Rakes Frolick’ Luke Caffrey’s Gost 2: In each barony through the country, / Boozing heartily, cruising gallantly.
1801		C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 131: When his ship rides at anchor he boozes on shore.
1818		Morn. Chron. (London) 7 May 3/4: They come from Bench, Bar, and Palace [...] with l—th who booze, or with c—gh sup.
1822		‘Song of the Cadgers’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 130: Then booze about, our cash an’t out.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford I 206: He’s boosing away at a fine rate, in the back-parlour.
1837		Marryat Snarleyyow I 50: It was one night when we were boozing over a stiff glass at the new shop there.
1841		‘Bet Farrell’ Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 39: Dick well knew that she would be boozing.
1854		E.L. Sloan ‘Mrs. Sleek’ Bard’s Offering 70: They [...] would booze for a night ere they parted.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 423/2: I knew one of these Crocusses who was so hard up from lushing and boozing about.
1867		J. Greenwood Unsentimental Journeys 194: This cabbage-bawling, carpet-beating, gravel-carting, coal-selling, goods-removing, servants’-box-conveying, ‘Jolly Sandboy’-boosing person.
1886		Eve. News (Sydney) 22 May 3/6: All you blooming fellows what write’s thinks because a chap is up at court [...] he must be a booser, and hang round pubs on Sunday.
1887		Lantern (New Orleans, LA) 5 Feb. 3: When red-headed Mag was boozin’, she wus er holy terror.
1889		Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday 24 Aug. 267/2: In Canton gardens I have boozed .
1899		A. Binstead Gal’s Gossip 147: And then we went, and the money we spent / In boozing at the Criterion.
1901		H. Lawson ‘Send Round the Hat’ in Roderick (1972) 472: I ain’t a feller that boozes, but I ain’t got nothin’ agen chaps enjoyin’ themselves.
1901		D. Cotsford Society Snapshots 260: Captain Snigger. Le monde où l’on se booze.
1910		H. Hapgood Types From City Streets 38: I booze too much.
1913		Truth (Sydney) 3 Aug. 12/4: When a humble worker boozes / In a pub, he’s all that's wrong.
1914		Joyce ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’ Dubliners (1956) 117: I sent him to the Christian Brothers and I done what I could for him, and there he goes boozing about.
1928		C. McKay Home to Harlem 19: We got some more stuff to booze over.
1930		N. Lindsay Redheap (1965) 291: ‘I don’t wonder she boozes’.
1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 78: You wouldn’t think an old boobatch like that’d have so much stren’th left in him, boozin’ down Division night after night.
1951		J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye (1958) 36: All I ever saw him do was booze all the time.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 28: You were working, not boozing.
1982		J.M. Del Vecchio 13th Valley (1983) 23: We don’t booze it out there. We don’t blow no weed.
1993		G. Disher Deathdeal [ebook] ‘[T]hey don’t like it if we booze at these things.
1997		(con. 1960s) A. Frewin London Blues 131: He had been boozing and his speech was slightly slurred.
2002		A. Duff Jake’s Long Shadow 224: I was (in my misery state down at Jojo’s) out boozing.

2. to toast, to drink to.

1837

Bell’s Life in London 31 Dec. 3/1: ’Till twelve we may booze the year thirty-seven.

3. to give drink to a third party.

1879

London Life 24 May 7/1: Don’t let it be said that the most liberal hand at boozing ruffians shall be the most successful artist. Rely on your own talent and refuse to support this vile imposition.

4. to drink away, i.e. money.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 18/3: I’m sorry, now, for all those deeds, / Those lives with mine I wrecked – / How oft I helped the shepherd hands / To booze the hard-earned cheque.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Culture in the Slums’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 179: Suppose I put ’em up the flue, / And booze the profits, Joe? Not me.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 43: Nosey pocketed his reward [...]. ‘Bet he boozes the lot,’ the Captian prophesied.
1958		A. Sillitoe Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 127: Irish navvies sometimes gathered there to booze away the last of their wages.