Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a drunken party.

1931		A. Hardin ‘Volstead English’ in AS VII:2 87: Terms referring to the state of intoxication: At a booze-fest.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1957		E. & S. Deak Grand Dictionnaire d’Americanismes.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 87: Booze fest A drinking party.
1980		F. Leiber Sinful Ones 95: The bacchanal shrunk to a precalculated and profit-motivated booze-fest under the direction of a Pan who’d gone all to watery flesh and been hitting the dope for two thousand years.
1997		A. Schimke Great Escapes 104: But for an increasing number of students, the week long booze-fest [i.e. spring break] isn't all it's cracked up to be.
2005		Sun News (Ottawa) 🌐 A retired cop is furious that a recent convention of young Liberals in Windsor turned into a boorish boozefest that kept him awake until the wee hours of the morning.
2010		C. McDougall Born to Run 187: What better than a booze-fest? Everyone gets ripped, goes wild, and then, chastened by bruises and hangovers, they dust themselves off and get on with their lives.

a drunkard.

1895		Vancouver Dly World 2 May 8/2: W. Lee, a common, ev ery day booze artist.
1895		St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) 21 Nov. 9/3: A venturesome booze artist drifted down on the levee early Thursday morning.
1901		Times (Richmond, VA) 25 Dec. 6/4: In Germany [...] on Christmas Eve at midnight all the water turns to wine. That would be a comforting thing to the booze artist.
1908		Wisconsin Engineer 13–14 253: Nothing will queer an apprentice quicker than to be known as a ‘booze artist’.
1912		I.H. Gillmore Phoebe, Ernest and Cupid 89: Augusta says that he would be the greatest reporter in the world, if he weren’t a ‘booze-artist’.
1921		R. Watson Spoilers of the Valley 99: Old Sommerville, they called the man, was a terrible booze artist. He was drunk day and night.
1927		I.S. Cobb Ladies and Gentlemen 148: Her establishment had a booze-artist for a proprietor and a hard and aggravating name among the police force.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 12: These men were very popular among workingmen, were what are called Booze Artists, fellows who can drink continuously without getting drunk.
1940		H. Drake-Brockman Hot Gold III i: Scared I’ll turn into a booze-artist if I’m left alone?
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 329: And are they booze-artists! Boy, we thought we could put it away, but they beat us hollow.
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 51: It all begun in the first place with Him gettin’ pretty jack of the way all these booze artists and eeler-spielers and loose women, as they’re called, was lairin’ it up.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 89: I’d rather be a live booze artist than make a living outa bitsa faces.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 19/1: booze artist heavy drinker of alcohol; c.1920.
1996		(con. 1950s) in P. Doyle Get Rich Quick (2004) 15: He also asked if my father was still a bludging booze artist, if my mum was still a drunken slut.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2004		C. James Even As We Speak 110: Glumly we learn that he wasn’t just a racist, a wanker, a miser and a booze artist [etc.].

(N.Z.) a fat stomach that has resulted from sustained heavy drinking.

1979		R.J. Williams Skin Deep 17: That’s a booze balloon around his middle region, and his shoulders slope a bit [DNZE].
1988		Canberra Times (ACT) 13 Mar. 2/9: Was it mere coincidence that Bond's booze balloon hovered in the vicinity of Canberra Grammar School [...] today (March 9)? I for one am tired of Mr Bond's bloated belly, his bloated bank account and his bloated blimp.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

(Aus./N.Z.) anywhere dedicated to the large-scale and rapid service of alcohol.

1903		Truth (Brisbane) 3 May 2/4: The sturdy grafters [...] selfishly, allow, even practically aid, sweating bosses and bossesses of booze barns to work their servants all and any hours.
1922		Sun. Times (Perth) 5 Nov. 14/3: He had landlorded many hostelries [...] and it is to his credit that in his regime they were residential and well-conducted, and not the flash-barmaided, non-dining, booze barns so prevalent at present.
1950		Dly News (Perth) 23 Feb. 25/3: [T]his column seems to give a lot of free space to the booze barns of this settlement.
1976		in A. Purdy Storm Warning 2 90: All of a sudden my desk becomes a bar / and I’m in some roadside booze barn / sipping beer .
1979		Gebbie & Mcgregor Incredible 8-Ounce Dream 94: While there appears to be some general consensus that a small cosy neighbourhood tavern [...] is a preferable alternative to a boozebarn sited in the middle of a concrete wasteland, no one wants them in the street [DNZE].
1984		Eve. Post (Wellington) 20 Aug. 14: The new bottle stores and parlour bars.. are part of moves by the Wellington South Licensing Trust to get away from the 1970s image of taverns as large booze barns .
1990		Canberra Times (ACT) 3 Sept. 10/3: Joyce, a western hostess in an Osaka booze barn.
1992		B. Anderson Portrait Artist’s Wife 260: No booze barns here. Not in 1972, my word. Those days are gone.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2005		www.kiwicorner.fr 🌐 Jake […] contents himself by drinking with his mates in the local booze barn and partying at night.
2010		C. Rawlings-Way Sydney 199/1: This swanky art-deco booze barn.

(US) a bar.

1895		L.A. Times 20 Sept. 5/7: A Spring-street booze bazaar, where [they] each partook of a generous bumper of whiskey.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 352: I went into the booze bazaar.
1904		‘Hugh McHugh’ I’m from Missouri 44: I became so popular in all the booze bazaars that [etc.].
1905		Day Dawn Chron. (WA) 25 Feb. 3/1: They Say [...] That the array of ‘dead marines’ in the grand stand is reminiscent of the rear of a bush booze bazaar.
1909		Williams News (AZ) 21 Aug. 3/5: I went one night with my high-priced thirst to loaf in a booze bazaar.
1910		Truth (Brisbane) 4 Dec. 11/3: [T]he gentleman who was deriving temporary support from the frontal wall of a booze bazaar.
a.1914		C. Sandburg ‘God’s Children’ [poem] God sleeps in a Y.M.C.A. dormitory / And never goes near a booze bazaar.
1922		‘The Magic Glass’ in Flying Cloud ... Old Time Songs 130: I went one night with a high-priced thirst to loaf in a booze bazaar.
1933		Iola Register (KS) 1 May 4/2: ‘Myself when young did eagerly frequent’ all sorts of booze bazaars.
1940		Meyersdale Republican (PA) 25 Jan. 2/6: The booze bazaars are here again [...] No more do guzzling men alone call up the drinks which drunken; but giddy girls and dames are there with morals badly shrunken.
1950		R. Service ‘The Duel’ in Rhymes of a Roughneck 18: In Pat Mahoney’s booze bazaar the fun was fast and free.
1960		Ft Lauderdale News (FL) 10 Nov. 8/4: The current debate [...] over extending the hour for shuttering the local booze bazaars [etc].

(US) a fat stomach that has resulted from excessive drinking, thus booze-bellied; orig. used as an insult for one who has one.

1913		Cincinnati Enquirer (OH) 20 Nov. 4/2: ‘Hell-hounds,’ ‘lying pups,’ ‘bawdy brats,’ ‘slimy sinners,’ ‘booze-bellies,’ [...] ‘rotten vipers’.
1932		letter in Philadelphia Inquirer (PA) 23 Feb. 8/7: Hootch-Hound, Liquor-Louse, Wine-Sap, Sop-Swiller, Booze-Belly, Liquor-Lizard [...] Mash-Maggot.
1965–70		in DARE.
1966		Tharunka (Kensington, NSW) 26 July 2/1: [S]un bronzed, booze bellied Jim Hamilton.
1989		T. Thackrey King of Diamonds 38: He was a classic, wearing the booze belly, battered bulb nose, and bib-alls of the rural Saturday night bar fighter.
2003		S. Elliott Politically Inspired 67: I looked sideshowesque, the small bloat of my tiny booze-belly poofed out, my face drawn and haggard.

1. (US) a fig. insect that represents alcohol as the promoter of drunkenness and possible mental instability; thus alcoholism.

1903		Philadelphia Inquirer (PA) 26 July 9/4: I did not see one man showing any evidence of having dallied with the booze bug [...] there was not a drunken soldier visible.
1903		Lincoln Eve. News (NW) 23 Dec. 6/4: [headline] booze bugs Gardner Attributes His Dalliance / With Murderous Chisel to / Fusil Nectar.
1905		Truth (Perth) 23 Sept. 1/5: Spearman’s chief fault was that he had been badly bitten by the ‘booze bug’.
1905		Bluefield Dly Teleg. (WV) 4 Apr. 2/4: He is the king-pin of the booze-bug boys.
1910		L.A. Times 14 July 12/3: [headline] is bitten by ‘booze bug’ / Combination of Boy and Gun Causes Trouble / Youngster’s ‘First Drunk Is Terror to Friends / Shoots Up Neighborhood and Goes to Jail.
1926		Truth (Brisbane) 17 Jan. 11/3: [headline] when the booze bug / got the handcuffs / on clancy’s barber / Periodical Benders and Glorious Sprees.
1934		Advertiser-Jrnl (Haleyville, AL) 25 Oct. 6/4: easier access to beverage alcohol means more drunkenness, crime and death. We have government protection from the bean beetle — why not the booze bug?

2. (US) a drunkard, an alcoholic.

1905		F. Hutchison Philosophy of Johnny the Gent 15: ‘Now, ain’t that enough to drive a batty booze bug away from all the good resolutions he could frame up in a year?’.
1906		Buffalo Enquirer (NY) 6 Jan. 6/7: Roemer, whom the police classify as a ‘booze bug.,’ was sent to the Penitentiary.
1920		Oregon Dly Jrnl 15 Mar. 9/3: Black Jack and casino may be stimulating — they’re no alibi — not the kind that the average Booze Bug is looking for.

3. (US und.) a gangster involved in the illegal liquor business .

1931

Dly News (NY) 9 Feb. 3/3: The gun gangs lived like princes, died like rats and were buried like kings. It was nothing to see a ton of [...] flowers withering on some booze bug’s grave.

(Aus./N.Z.) a police van used for random breath tests (for excess alcohol).

1984		Canberra Times (ACT) 13 May 12/1: Kingston residents using their ‘local’ [i.e. to hold parties] can avoid the nightmare of the booze bus.
1988		Bulletin 110 40: His office is an unscientific jumble of devices ranging from police booze bus blow-bags to the latest in electronic [equipment].
1991		R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 76: [I]f a booze bus [...] put a bag on him he’d probably blow the thing to the other side of the moon.
2001		Aus. Eng. Gloss. 🌐 Booze bus: Police van used for random breath testing for alcohol.
2005		T. Cantwell Five Sides of the Fence 47: Inside the booze bus are two areas for testing suspected drink driving offenders.
2011		M. Riddell Life, a Little Brown Dog 29: Back in those days, there’s no booze bus or random breath testing for alcohol.

(W.I. Rasta) a drink and dance party, a ‘rave’.

1994

M. Montague Dread Culture 173: Sheba and Josephine waited in line outside a booze can housed in an old warehouse. [...] As cars pulled up and their passengers scrambled out, the line outside the warehouse grew until at last the doors opened to loud blasts of music.

1. (US) a liquor dealer.

1901		Schuyler Sun (NE) 7 June 5/6: It was a surprise [...] that a meeting of liquor dealers could be held [...] and no more evidence of drunkenness be exhibited [...] In fact it was a decidedly sober looking lot of booze cappers that lined out streets.
1916		Caney News (KS) 7 July 1: [headline] county in big booze case capper paid the guards.

2. a woman who works in a bar to persuade customers to drink more than they wish or should.

1915

Variety 29 Oct. n.p.: A girl who had been a waitress in a mining town and then graduated to a ‘booze capper’ in a western dance hall [HDAS].

a public house, a tavern.

1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1873		Sl. Dict. 92: Booze, or Suck Casse a public house.

(US) a bartender.

1899		W.J. Kountz Billy Baxter’s Letters 17: Ordinarily I call the booze clerk by his first name, but when you are cutting into the grape at four dollars per, you always want to say Mr. Bartender.
1902		Boston Globe Sun. Mag. 21 Dec. 7–8: There are [...] the ‘booze-clerks,’ who pass around the ‘suds’ at the ‘boozarium,’ where intoxicating drinks are sold.
1908		Godwin’s Wkly 7 Mar. 4/3: Sayest the booze clerk unto thee, ‘Partake now of this tub of suds, for the house buyeth’.
1911		C. Lockhart Me-Smith 13: He had filled his pocket from the booze-clerk’s sugar-bowl.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 268: In his Day, the Booze-Clerk was Pythias to every Damon who came in for a Pick-me-Up.

(UK/US Und.) a bar, a tavern, any drinking establishment.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 97/1: ‘Cum in ’ere,’ said he, pulling me into a ‘boose crib’.
1877		Dodge City Times (KS) 2 June 5/3: Suppose Hayes and Morton should get on a bender and put their jewelry in soak for boose, then it would be appropriate to say they ‘got to the boose joint’ by this means.
1879		Dodge City Globe 5 Sept. in Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild 157: ‘Getting to the booze joint,’ as it were, in good shape, and ‘making a ranikaboo play for ourselves’.
1889		Clarkson & Richardson Police! 350: There is another kind of cracksmen who work on common booze cribs.
1891		Sheridan Co. Star (NE) 25 Sept. 4/2: Hay Springs is going to have another booze mill.
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 64: He’s gone right down into his kick and dug up the long green and he’s puttin’ it out at the booze joints.
1903		Topeka State Jrnl (KS) 15 Oct. 7/4: Two policemen, ‘innocent of any evil intentions’ [...] called at the Fred Ross booze mill [...] Some woman telephoned that her husband was on a rampage.
1905		Central Law Journal LXI 314/1: The next report of the profits of the city booze mill will be short several dollars from that source.
1905		Montana News (Lewistown, MT) 17 May 2/3: Nowhere has the Socialist movement stooped to tghe depth of opening booze joints [...] ‘to get the workers together to teach them’.
1908		San Bernardino Co. Sun 4 Aug. 3/5: An application for an additional saloon license was to have been presented [...] The person who is [...] engaging in the operation of a new booze parlor is James H. Logan.
1915		Daily Trib. (Bismarck, ND) 13 Apr. 4/5: The young lobster who [...] goes into the back doors of booze joints and tries to drink the whole bunch under the tables.
1916		Liahona 229: How much better is a Mormon Tabernacle [...] than is a ‘booze mill’ with its hellish back door family entrance.
1927		C.M. Russell Trails Plowed Under 31: Me and a friend drops into a booze parlor. [Ibid.] 175: The owner of this booze joint.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 206: He walked into a combination boozing joint and dance hall.
1930		State (SC) 26 Jan. 28/7: Officers estimated the boozw-mill was capable of turning out 1,000 gallons [of rye whiskey] daily.
1931		Ade Old-Time Saloon 19: A large slice of the population, even during the high tide of the wet era, shunned the booze joints and rode on the wagon.
1931		Santa Fe New Mexican (NM) 19 Mar. 2: [headlined] Uncle Sam Goes After More Owners Of Alledged ‘Booze’ Parlors in N.M.
1933		J. Dixon Black Adventure 48: Tom and Dick, both well pickled, supervised all the arrangements while the owner of the Booze Crib looked on, anticipation of a heavy week’s taking written on his face.
1937		‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 48: They are the barrel house habitues, the type you see lying around in [...] booze joints.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 271: At the next booze joint, Guy, get me a bottle.
1963		Florence Morn. News (SC) 29 Dec. 2/2: [headline] Booze Mill Is Destroyed A small illegal whiskey still [...] was blasted by federal, state and county agents.
1971		Billboard 14 Aug. 32/1: The kids won’t go to a booze joint, but at a hall or in a Fillmore ballroom you’ll see a real mixture of older hipsters and young hippies.
1997		J. LaMotta Raging Bull 84: [He] set up a fight club, which was largely a cheap booze joint where on other nights he was putting on dirty movies.
2010		R. Smith Wake Up Dead 93: Billy parked up the block from the booze joint, beyond the tepid wash of a solitary streetlight.

see boozorium n.

(US) a saloon, a bar; also distilleries, often illegal.

1888		Eve. Bulletin (Maysville, KY) 7 May 4/2: Mary Ann is a nuisance, as is her saloon. Gallagher [...] is notified that he will let ’er go on peril of paying for all the damage she does with her booze factory.
1898		Jrnl & Trib. (Knoxville, TN) 22 Jan. 6/3: Revenue officers discovered [...] a big still [...] Richard Johnson was the only person at the booze factory and he was arested for moonshining.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 42: I could see the ducks dropping into the booze factories. [Ibid.] 221: The bright-lighted booze factories. [Ibid.] 269: A corner rum factory that was just opening up.
1904		L.A. Times 31 Mar. pt 2 7/2: The Pacific Gardens, one of the town’s oldest booze factories, is to be retired from the drink traffic.
1910		Charlotte News (NC) 15 Jan. 3/1: [headline] Assisting Friend Move Illicit Booze Factory.
1911		Sun. Star (DC) 5 Mar. pt 4 3/2: Lefty raised a ‘bone’ (a dollar) and they went into the nearest booze factory to celebrate.

a licensed victualler.

1909

press cutting in J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 43/2: You may run down booze fencers as much as you like, but you take my tip that there are more real gentlemen among them than among any other class, upper ten included.

(US) any celebration featuring the consumpion of alcohol.

1898		St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) 7 Apr. 9/1: He looks not upon the boozefest when it is lurid.
1906		Sequachee Valley News (TN) 31 May 2/1: Several of our citizens are contemplating attending a booze-fest at Atlanty next week.
1915		Dly Capital Jrnl (Salem, OR) 30 Dec. 4/3: The old year will pass out with the greatest celebration and ‘booze fest’.
1921		N.Y. Tribune 18 Dec. 53/5: Beneath the barracks in Trenton is what [...] an up-to-date young lady in charge of that repository [...] terms a ‘booze fest cellar’[...] One visualizes the merry men of Hesse forgathered there [...] hoisting their steins, clinking their glasses and roaring out with gusto.
1936		Morn. News 15 May 9/8: [headline] Werder’s Booze Fest Immovable Fixture in Nazis’ Fatherland.
1958		(con. 1908) Capital Times (Madison, WI) 5 Nov. 37/7: U.W. Pres. Charles R. Vazn Hise [...] warns he will not tolerate ‘booze fests’.

see separate entries.

(US) a saloon.

1891		Pittsburgh Dispatch 12 Oct. 2/1: It is gravely told how an assortment of old ‘booze foundries’ called ‘breweries’ were put on the eye of sundry British capitalists.
1901		Daily Public Ledger (Maysville, KY) 8 July 2/2: She [...] is herself a post-graduate in the fine art of whisky-drinking, and frequently toastmaster to a kindred gang in the ‘Ladies Sitting Room’ of a booze-foundry.
1908		Colville Examiner (WA) 26 Sept. 7/3: He is going to be handicapped in not being allowed to drive a bunch of voters up to the trough at the booze foundry.
1919		Coconino Sun (Flagstaff, AZ) 3 Oct. 7/2: A casual visit to the premises had revealed the existence of a highly-organized booze foundry.
1931		A. Hardin ‘Volstead English’ in AS VII:2 86: Places of business for illegal traffic in liquor [...] Booze foundry.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 564: The substitution of far-fetched figures for literal description gives him [...] booze-foundry for saloon, and cart-wheel for dollar.
1953		G.H. Otis Bourbon Street [ebook] I found a parking place outside a dilapidated booze foundry [...] I got out and walked into the honky-tonk.
1960		Indianapolis Star 14 Feb. sect. 4 6/4: The press boys joined madame in a few glasses [...] from her booze foundry just outside Paris.
1964		Province (Vancouver) 3 Feb. 4/5: He suggested that those who did not care to patronize ‘booze foundries’ might be interested in carrot juice.

a bar, a saloon.

1907		N. Wales Wkly News 16 Aug. 2/5: Aw axed fur th’ refresmint place, th’ booze garage, fur aw wur as dree es a stove poipe.
1908		Omaha World-Herald 6 Dec. 10/1: Stanley was [...] holding up the mahogany in some booze garage.
1912		Pittsburgh Press (PA) 16 Aug. 21/5: He hopped into a booze garage [...] and proceeded to get ossified.
1918		Boston Post 28 Apr. 40/7: ‘Wollen sie avoir une chair, bitte, quand je telephone a le Booze Garage’.
1921		Tennessean 13 Sept. 4/6: Business man’s lunch now consists of food. Can’t get any stagger food. Booze garages are closed.
1930		Dly Record (Long Branch, NJ) 6 Aug. 3/4: The Beach View Garden Hotel [...] was among the alleged ‘booze garages’.

1. (US) a member of the coastguard tasked with enforcing Prohibition at sea and on the US coast.

1925		Eve. Sun (Baltimore, MD) 10 Dec. 1/8: The [rum-running] scheme was carried out. After its discovery the boozegobs involved were court-martialed.
1925		Eve. Sun (Baltimore, MD) 14 Dec. 2/4: During the year 37,594 vessels were boarded by boozegobs and had their papers inspected.
1936		Harrisburg Teleg. (PA) 13 Aug. +1/1: A brief newspaper characterization of the crusading Coast Guard as ‘boozegobs’.

2. (US) a drunkard or regular drinker [? a mis-interpretation].

1934

Weseen Dict. Amer. Sl. 273: [Drinking] Boozegob – A heavy drinker.

(US) one who obtains drink for free thus booze-grafting, persuading others to buy one a drink.

1894		Washington Times (DC) 23 Dec. 6/5: A new fraternity was organized among the old bums and ‘booze-grafters’ who hang around [...] looking for free drinks.
1896		F. Hutcheson Barkeep Stories 59: ‘You was graftin’? Booze-graftin’?’ ‘Naw — not booze graftin’’.
1903		Inter Ocean (Chicago) 25 Jan. 34/7: I couldn’t see anything but the French suds, and I dropped into John L’s [where] I met a bundle of booze grafters [...] and executed the Rube stunt of purchasing a few quarts for them.
1910		C.L. Cullen ‘The Knocker’s Own Lexicon’ in Buffalo Times (NY) 1 Apr. 7/3: booze fighter — A man who refuses to pay for all the drinks of the booze grafters of his acquaintance.
1920		Russellville Messenger (KY) 8 Jan. 2/5: The ‘booze grafters’ are still imbibing wood alcohol and turning up their toes, despite the daily casualty list.
1930		Pittsburgh Press (PA) 18 June 12/4: An effici8ent large-scale government monopoly would ruin all the bootleggers, moonshiners and booze grafters.

(US) a yearning for alcohol.

1903

Nebraska State Jrnl (Lincoln, NE) 14 June 9/5: I could see that the booze-hank was strong upon him.

(US) a drunkard.

1910		Jackson Dly News (MS) 25 July 4/2: Some of the notorious old soaks and booze-heads in the legislature.
1921		Coosa River News (Centre, AL) 17 June 2/2: The ‘good old days’ when you reactionary boozeheads frequented ‘respectable’ saloons.
1934		Pittsburgh Courier 27 Jan. 13/7: That sensually mad crowd, packed like boozeheads in a cell in jail.
1943		Tennessean (Nashville, TN) 20 Jan. 14/7: [advert[ Dry Cleaning and Laundry Route Open for Good Driver [...] No Booze-Heads.
1950		St Louis Star & Times 20 Feb. 25/3: ‘The other guys [...] stay in the joints and maybe become boozeheads who drink more than they serve’.
1968		Current Sl. III:1 5: Booze freak, n. Drunk.
1989		H. Harrison Bill [...] on the Planet of Robot Slaves (1991) 45: I am going to do a little catching up with you teaheads, dopeheads and boozeheads.
1999		J. Walsh No Mercy 52: Eddie James — pot-head, cokehead, crackhead, boozehead — was stone cold sober and enjoying the drive.
2000		in Boston Phoenix 24–31 Aug. 🌐 No one wants to live with a prude, but a drooling boozehead who prays to the porcelain god each evening isn’t exactly a prime candidate for the spare bedroom either.
2005		tiscali film and tv 🌐 Casting Bullock against type, as a pill-popping boozehead who needs to get on the wagon before she goes off the rails, shows savvy.

(US) a bar, a tavern; the centre of the liquor lobby.

1901		Eve. Review (E. Liverpool, OH) 14 Feb. 4/2: Kansas has been made the laughing stock of the nation by the liquor traffic [...] Her officials have been reached by an extended hand from booze headquarters.
1907		Anaconda Standard (MT) 20 Jan. 21/6: The Directors [...] are so conscientious that they never would support an ordinary Booze Headquarters’.
1908		Salt Lake Telegram (UT) 27 Nov. 3/2: Last night was a jolly one in Zion’s watering places [...] Everyone was happy in the booze headquarters.
1910		Coshocton Dly Tribune (OH) 27 Aug. 4/2: The tip has gone out from booze headquarters in Cincinnati to their friends [...] to get busy.
1911		Salina Eve. Jrnl (KS) 7 Apr. 5/1: [headline] K.U. Boarding House ‘Pulled’ as a ‘Booze Headquarters’.

1. (US) a prodigious drinker; thus booze-hoisting, heavy drinking.

1897		Pittsburgh Dly Post (PA) 30 Mar. 4/6: Fred Oakhurst’s saloon [...] is where you find the opposition [to prohibitionists] the ‘booze-hoisters’ of the village.
1903		Rock Is. Argus 30 June 5/4: [He] fell in with a force of booze-hoisters and [...] strayed across the bridge into Rock Island still somewhat under the influence of liquor.
1909		Cameron Co. Press (Emporium, PA) 7 Jan. 1/3: While in Emporium his associates were gamblers and booze-hoistershit the .
1913		B. Sunday [sermon] Pneumonia has a first mortgage on a booze-hoister.
1923		N. Anderson Hobo 67: A ‘booze-hoister’ indulges in a liquor spree.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 10: Don’t be a booze-hoister like me. [Ibid.] 322: Greek, a handsome language spoken by the good old booze-hoisting Hellenes.
1931		Express (Lock Haven, PA) 25 Feb. 6/3: The buck-private is a hard-boiled booze-hoister.
1934		Weseen Dict. Amer. Sl. 273: [Drinking] Booze hister – A drinker; a bartender.
1942		Metropolitan Pasadena Star-News (CA) 30 May 8/7: Sheriff Pat Garrett and other notable booze-hoister [...] indulged in regular nightly bouts with Old John Barleycorn.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 31: booze-hister A drunkard.
1959		J.R. Williams Out Our Way 3 Mar. [synd. cartoon] Why how kin people think we’re booze hoisters, as good church members are you an’ Pa are?
1961		Cumberland Eve. Times (MD) 17 July 6/7: [headline] Booze Hoister / Lands In Jail / With Brother.
2003		symitar ‘Dead Rats’ at allpoetry.com 🌐 He was once a booze hoister, a heavy drinker,.

2. a bartender.

1934

see sense 1.

(US) a dedicated drinker, thus attrib.

1904		Metropolitan Mag. 21:1 8/2: I’d say he was a red-’eaded, skim-milk-eyed, freckle- jawed, stern-first-talkin’ Cardiff booze-hound.
1912		Van Loan ‘The Comeback’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 211: If he had n’t been a booze hound, he ’d have been the greatest pitcher in the world.
1925		J. Tully Beggars of Life 78: I could tell he wasn’t a farmer, but an old hobo booze-hound.
1929		(con. 1917–18) C. MacArthur War Bugs 129: A bitterness deriving from the Captain having addressed them as booze hounds.
1930		R. McAlmon ‘Blithe Insecurities’ in Knoll McAlmon and the Lost Generation (1976) 42: Is it just lack of drink and decent food that’s shocked the old boozehound to shivers?
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 101: I hope that in the course of your — er — ha — hum duties as boozehound — I beg your pardon, the slang phrase slipped out accidentally — as entertainment officer for this Company.
1938		J. Weidman I Can Get It For You Wholesale 221: When I saw some of those boozehounds actually set their glasses down so they could clap their hands, I knew the line was a hit.
1946		Drake & Cayton Black Metropolis 567: With a hophead daddy and a booze houn’ mammy. How he ever gonna be a doctah?
1955		B. Appel Tough Guy [ebook] The girls in the bedroom had heard other riproaring boozehounds before.
1968		N. von Hoffman We are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against 241: Many dope takers [...] give it up and become booze hounds.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 128: You bloody booze hound!
1986		S. King It (1987) 831: Carl Kitchener – who looked like a veteran boozehound and smelled like an old horse-blanket.
1999		J. Ridley Love Is a Racket 86: He was a booze hound [...] A perpetual drunk.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 21: Everybody in here’s pissed off, ’specially us boozehounds.
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] You’re only ever about two to three drinks away from disaster, any journeyman of the alcoholic booze hound wasteland knows that.
2017		M. Forsyth Short History of Drunkenness 18: We humans are champion booze-hounds.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 151: A booze-hound bachelor and a cloistered closet queen. He juiced at the Raincheck Room.
2022		I. Fitzgerald Dirtbag, Massachusetts 104: Like finding secret rooms [...] a boozehound Narnia.

1. (US) a bar, a tavern.

1880		Cincinnati Dly Star (OH) 24 Feb. 2/2: Tony Overman’s ‘booze’ house was the scene [...] of a spirited biffing rumpus.
1890		Democrat & Chron. (Rochester, NY) 2 Mar. 5/4: A hotelkeeper [...] has blazoned upon his envelopes ‘Booze House [...] The resort of the Profession’.
1901		Knox Co. Democrat (Edina, MS) 28 Mar. 1/6: Mrs Crow [...] was trying to act the part of a Mrs Carrie Nation on some of the booze houses in Clarence, Mo.
1910		Emery Co. Progress. (Castle Dale, UT) 22 Jan. 1/4: Our saloon man Joseph Dumayne is once more called into question for irregularities at the booze house .
1922		Border Cities Star (Windsor, Ont.) 20 Apr. 11/4: [He] declared Flint [Michigan] must be rid of its booze houses and questionable women.

2. (US) a liquor wholesaler.

1900		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 7 July 11/4: [A] drummer for a Quaker City wholesale booze house.
1913		Sawyer News (KS) 12 Dec. 5/2: The booze houses have been making a desperate effort to furnish Christmas cheer to this community.

see booze crib

see bousing-ken n.

see booze-fighter n.

1. (Aus,) a drunkard, a heavy drinker.

1914		Truth (Perth) 10 Jan. 9/5: We have quite enough to do to keep yarra bend and similar institutions and their complements of religious maniacs, booze kings, and others.
1918		Truth (Brisbane) 30 June : Mr. Blair: Aren't you of drunken habits? Mead: No. Blair: Aren't you known as the "booze king"?’.
1921		Teleg. (Brisbane) 24 Sept. 15/1: ‘He is what Is called a “booze-king”,’ said Senior-Sergeant Donnelly [...] he was a habitual drunkard, and did very llttle work.
1935		Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 17 Nov. 6/4: Matron O'Brien was a disagreeable person. She was abusive to the patients [...] and the patients in the lock ward complained that she called them ‘booze kings and rotters’ .
1937		Townsville Dly Bulletin (Qld) 1 Oct. 11/5: I [...] admired your yarns about Western booze kings, and [...] they could swallow the giggle juice.
1945		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 3 Nov. 19/3: BIRD BOOZE KINGS There is a species of tippler who has been able to maintain his regular benders, despite any wartime rationing measures. This is the rainbow bird, of NQ jungles.
1954		Wingham Chron. (NSW) 19 Oct. 3/4: 20 traffic accidents were reported; 14 alleged burglars, booze kings and traffic offenders were picked up.

2. (Aus.) a liquor manufacturer, a distiller.

1953

Truth (Brisbane) 18 Oct. 2/4: [headline] Booze Kings Thumbing Noses At Government Rule A number of [...] hotels owned by the money-hungry breweries are selling liquor worth hundreds of thousands of pounds a year — but are providing no meals, and little accommodation, as the law requires them to do.

an illicit still (see also booze crib ).

1910		Arkansas City Dly News 12 Apr. 1/1: [headline] Another booze mill was choked off [...] when Marshal McLain located and seized a barrel at the home of Sterling Simpson, colored.
1920		State (SC) 27 Aug. 16/3: [headline] [of an illicit whiskey still] capture booze mill / Officers Raid Still Near Gaston and Make Find.
1944		Dly News (NY) 5 June 9/3: A new booze mill mash already simmering in its vat, was uncovered yesterday.
1955		Dly News (NY) 6 Mar. 393/3: An honest-to-goodness booze mill [...] presided over by a character fresh from the mountains, complete with double-barrel shotgun.
1977		Memphis Press-Scimitar (TN) 14 Jan. 11/2: Besides facing a prison sentence the producer [of illicit whiskey] also loses his booze mill.

1. (US) a heavy drinker.

1903

Pittsburgh Press (PA) 6 Nov. 20/2: Show me any team today that contains any such organized band of booze pushers.

2. a licensed victualler, a saloon-keeper; the producers and/or promoters of alcohol-based drinks.

1904		Fargo Forum (ND) 13 Jan. 8/1: Cooper said he was a ‘booze pusher’, meaning that he conducted a saloon.
1909		press cutting in J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 43/2: When a bloke is flatch kennurd the booze pushers will give him any rot in the house, and that’s very hard lines.
1914		Wichita Beacon (KS) 23 Oct. 1/1: ‘It’s a cinch I ain’t going to peach on a friendly booze-pusher’.
1922		Wapanucka Press (OK) 2 June 4/1: The national drive for beer and light wines, led by the booze pushers, is arousing the concern of the anti-saloon league.
1960		Vancouver Sun 6 Dec. 17/1: Hotel men and booze pushers like stroking the [...] million dollars spent by Grey Cup visitors.
1965		Windsor Star (Ont.) 24 Feb. 60/5: [headline] Ask School Ban On Booze Pushers.
1969		Tampa Trib. (FL) 7 Dec. 38/4: Just go to the football games [...] and we will find a booze pusher.
1972		Burflington Free Press (VT) 29 Aug. 27/3: [headline] Law Proposed / To Make Booze / Pusher Liable [...] Alcohol ‘pushers’ would be legally liable for whatever may happen as a result of their serving liquor [etc].
1981		Pittsburgh Press (PA) 15 Apr. D-10/5: [of liquor stores] Cloonan said there would be a proliferation of ‘neighborhood booze pushers’ and warned that ‘cheap pints of high proof wine will be competitively priced with the milk shake’.
1994		Wausau Dly Herald (WI) 20 Dec. 3/5: Weninger was cautious [...] not to stereotype [...] bar owners as cash-crazed booze pushers.
2004		A. Prodgers ‘Barroom Poetry’ at www.alprodgers.com 29 Dec. 🌐 Of course, nowadays every booze pusher wants us to drink responsibly.

3. a bootlegger.

1924

Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI) 5 June 6/1: Every bootlegger, booze-pusher and poison-peddler who creeps from cover to solicit [the] visitors.

(N.Z.) a heavy drinker.

1962		M.K. Joseph Pound of Saffron 253: The way she talks [...] youd think I was a regular booze-rooster.
1978		West Coast Rev. 13 47/1: The ultimate image he held for himself, sometime booze rooster and womaniser with the golden tongue, was one of destitution.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

(US Und.) a transporter/smuggler of illegal alcohol; the vehicle or vessel used for such transport; thus booze run, the act of smuggling.

1910		Sacramento Bee (CA) 14 Sept. 14/5: The liquor is furnished by a ‘booze-runner’. He wears a belt similar to a cartridge belt, but has it loaded with bottles of beer and champagne.
1920		South Bend News-Times (IN) 12 Jan. 1/4: [headline] Booze Runners / Now Make Runs / on Ice Skates.
1930		Waukegan Dly Sun (IL) 8 Jan. 2/7: [headline] Men Nabbed in Springfield / Raid Said to Have Been / Booze Runners.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 35: Booze Run. – A settled or more or less regular business of running liquor across a Federal border, or of smuggling it from place to place. See also ‘runner.’.
1940		Des Moines Register (IA) 8 May 22/6: [headline] booze runner’s / car to be sold.
1952		Leavenworth Times (KS) 20 Mar. 4/5: The fair price requirement [...] may become a hole thru which ruthless booze runners can drive a ten ton truck loaded wirh illegal stocks.
2004		Borneo Bulletin 19 Apr. 🌐 [headline] Police Look For Booze Runner Who Dodged Customs.

a drinking party (usu. in a public house or bar).

1921		News-Jrnl (Lancaster, PA) 2q3 Mar. 7/4: [headline] wife hurt, husband / held after ‘party’ Booze Session on Rockland / Street Ends With Woman in /Hospital and Man in Jail.
1931		Quad-City Times (IA) 30 Aug. 9/5: Police broke up a drinking party [and ] five of the participants in the booze session went to jail.
1949		Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN) 30 May 5/4: [headline] Owner Loses Seeing-Eye Dog / Again After Booze Session.
1956		Miami News (FL) 19 June 20/5: [headline] Rowdy Russians / ‘Live It Up’ At / Booze Session.
1962		J.D. Stern Maverick Publisher 282: You pay Dan and me to look out for your interests and then go into a booze session with the chairman of the Board.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 87: Booze session A drinking party.
1973		R.W. Stallman Stephen Crane 212: A good share of the book, said the [Brooklyn] Eagle, describes a booze session in a saloon and a debauch at old Bleecker's party.
1987		L. Murray Musicians 273: A big booze session in his bungalow after with some of the musicians.
1997		J.D. Matthews Party Is Over 123: No weekend is a weekend without a booze session.
2002		H. Robertson Taipan Agenda 339: He knew [...] that ‘a couple’ was shorthand for a raging booze session. If the rotund Senior Inspector had his way, they would still be at it when the sun came up.

(Aus.) a (down-market) public house; an unlicensed place where people gather to drink.

1886		Goulburn Evening Penny Post (NSW) 8 Apr. 2/3: [I]f there had not been a public meeting the people would have said it [i.e. a working men’s club] would be only a boozing shop; but [...] if they got to work in a proper way there would perhaps be more coffee than beer drunk.
1892		Cumberland Mercury (NSW) 16 July 2/7: [H]e had applied for a license, but it was not for a boozing shop; it was for a first-class family hotel, and one that would bo a credit to Auburn.
1899		Mount Lyell Standard (Tas.) 27 Mar. 4/1: Applicants rush to lease the booze shop at £15 a week, These hotels are quick dividend payers, better than silver or, copper mines, they are gold mines.
1901		Truth (Sydney) 20 Jan. 1/4: [T]he bagnios and boozing shops about Sydney.
1901		Truth (Sydney) 22 Dec. 7/1: [A]ll the booze shops were shut, and an oyster was an unheard-of luxury.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 23 Jan. second section 1/1: They Say [...] That a Pinjarrah pest recently run into trouble in a Perth booze-shop.
1922		Truth (Sydney) 25 June 8/6: At ‘shicks o’clock’ every booze shop is supposed to close up.
1935		Shepparton Advertiser (Vic.) 6 Aug. 4/3: [T]here were so many complaints regarding one of these ‘booze’ shops, as they were referred to locally, that one of them was shut up.
1949		Dly Teleg. (Sydney) 21 Oct. 13/2: A father should never take his son into a booze shop. Young hoodlums will learn vice soon euough.
1952		Examiner (Launceston, Tas.) 9 Oct. 2/3: Many hotels now are merely booze shops, par ticularly some country houses which specialise in after-hours trade.

a beer drinker.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

(US) a barman.

1900		Plainfield Courier-News (NJ) 20 Feb. 7/6: ‘She’s quit home and married a booze-slinger’.
1905		F. Hutchison Philosophy of Johnny the Gent 77: ‘[T]he big booze slinger that played the doc says he’s goin' to sting Clancy for twenty bucks’.
1910		Bellevue Times (Alberta) 9 Dec. 1/4: Mr W. Stett, the popular booze slinger of the Bellevue Hotel.
1913		American Issue (Westerville, OH) 10 Jan. 4/1: The wife of the victim [...] impolored the booze slinger to stop selling her husband drink.
1926		Rutland Dly Herald (VT) 8 June 4/5: [P]rincely booze-slingers who had made all kinds of money.
1928		Vancouver Sun 10 July 8/4: [Prohibition] removes from a young woman the temptation to take a booze slinger’s job.
1939		Miami News (FL) 4 Mar. 8/7: He asked the bartender if it was a private fight [...] ‘Free for all,’ the booze slinger answered.

(US) an alcoholic.

1953

J. Thompson Savage Night (1991) 105: A punchy booze-stupe without enough guts to string a uke.

see it’s the beer talking under talk v.

see separate entry.

to be out on a spree.

1882

Bristol Magpie 7 Sept. 3/1: ‘Ee bin a doin’ a booze, ’ee hey’.

(orig. US) to drink heavily.

1889		Oregonian 14 Oct. 3/1: If Dasher gets a dozen or more customers with his own appetite for hitting the booze he will have no trouble making it go [DA].
1891		Morn. Call (San Francisco) 28 Dec. 8/1: Husband, have you been hitting the booze again?
1899		Argus (Holbrook, AZ) 15 Apr. 1/2: If I did have a jag the newspapers didn’t pay for it. I ain’t the only man that hits der booze.
1904		Eve. World (NY) 28 Sept. 10/4: The booze fiend is confronted by object lesons [...] but he keeps on hitting the booze.
1911		R.E. Knowles Singer of the Kootenay 101: But anyhow, he seems discouraged [...] most fellows in his condition would hit the booze.
1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 160: Took to hitting the booze. Goglefogle fired me.
1921		Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 19 Nov. 9/2: Fathers too often give up. Get the blues, go to hitting the booze.
1936		K. Mackenzie Living Rough 128: He [...] started hitting the booze and playing around with the white dames.
1948		E. Corle John Studebaker, an Amer. Dream 272: Then he began to hit the booze. Rum-dumb, they call it here.
1952		B. Appel Plunder (2005) 285: You hit the booze by yourself and you’ll turn into an alcoholic.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 189: You will start to hit the old booze quite a bit.
1978		C.S. Smith Fat People 59: We decide to hit the booze.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 25 July 41: So you hit the booze.
2004		C.A. Hosmer Flashover 56: He bellowed at her that she’d better not hit the booze again.
2012		D. Marshall Curse of Baird Hall 46: That old bugger must have hit the booze hard last night.

(Aus.) a drunkard; alcohol (taken to excess).

1913		Sport (Adelaide) 25 Oct. 8/4: Harry gave a song ‘Mr Boose’ [...] at the blow out.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 5 June 4/5: Leave Mr Booze alone and you will get your charm back.

drinking heavily.

1886		‘’Arry on Commercial Education’ in Punch 26 Sept. in P. Marks (2006) 124: Jest because I [...] ’appened to go on the booze.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 Aug. 10/1: Old Murphy, whose a cuter sort, / Is on the booze again.
1897		W.S. Maugham Liza of Lambeth (1966) 58: She was on the booze yesterday, an’ she ain’t got over it.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Aug. 16/2: He banked his money and then got on the booze in a one-pub hamlet, and after playing up £30 or £40, he walked away, one night, in a state of modified jim-jams to another pub, where he also commenced to streak with scarlet.
1930		(con. 1914–18) ‘I wore a Tunic’ Brophy & Partridge Songs and Sl. of the British Soldier 48: We fought and bled at Loos / While you were on the booze.
1930		K.S. Prichard Haxby’s Circus 137: You been on the booze or what?
1938		S. Beckett Murphy (1963) 46: Cooper [...] who has probably gone on the booze.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 314: Dad never goes on the booze much.
1944		in A. Marshall These Are My People (1957) 143: I was on the booze for eight months once.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘The Fishing-Boat Picture’ Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 86: I [...] became even too far gone to turn religious or go on the booze.
1968		P. Terson Apprentices (1970) I iv: bagley: What do you do after a day’s fishing? spow: Go on the booze.
1973		B.S. Johnson All Bull 121: I always drink some before I go on the booze [...] It lines your stomach.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 133: Other terms include getting (or going) on the grog/booze.

to treat one’s companions.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.