Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) to have sexual intercourse.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Snooze, or Snodge, [...] to sleep with a girl.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: To snooze with a mort; to sleep with a wench.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1788].
1835		‘On The Borders Of Billingsgate Vaters’ in Secret Songster 21: He’d not had a voman, d’ye see, / For a month, so quite frisky was he! [...] And to snooze vith her made it all right.

2. to doze, to sleep for a short time; thus snoozing n., dozing.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Snooze, or Snodge, to Snoozel.
1792		C. Dibdin ‘Jack the Guinea Pig’ in Buck’s Delight 75: The sailor, fearless, goes to sleep, / Or takes his watch most cheerly. / Boozing here, snoozing there.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: To Snooze, or Snoodge. To sleep.
1800		‘Sung in Fontainbleau’ in Songster’s Companion 79: I snooze at the Hummums till twelve, perhaps later.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 28: What with snoozing, high grubbing, and guzzling like Cloe, / Your Majesties, pardon me, all get so doughy.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 41: At peep o’day, when [...] coffee-shops vomit forth their snoozing customers.
1833		‘The Slap-Up Cracksman’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 42: The traps are snoozed – so we can swig / Without fear of touch or pig.
1837		Morning Herald (N.Y.) 12 Sept 1/2–3: There sat Justice Lowndes, with [...] the same gentlemanly demeanor, and neatness of apparel that ever distinguished him, to say nothing about the same anxiety to return home [...] and get a couple of hour’s capital snoozing before breakfast.
1843		L.H. Medina Nick of the Woods I iii: Well, captain, I suppose you and your friends will not object to a little snoozing after your tramp.
1848		Ladies’ Repository (N.Y.) Oct. VIII:37 317/1: Snooze, to sleep.
1855		Thackeray Newcomes II 229: The old man actually went to the Opera with his little girl, and solemnly snoozed by her side.
1862		‘Artemus Ward’ Artemus Ward, His Book 28: I spose I’d bin snoozin half a hour when I was woke up by a noise at the door.
1873		Siliad 61: Kamdux had snoozed, but now his fat sides shook [F&H].
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 10: I frisked a lushy yokel who was snoozing in the Park [...] I searched a drunken bushman who was sleeping in the Park.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 237: The vagabond brotherhood have several slang terms for sleeping out in a field or meadow. It is called ‘snoozing in Hedge-square,’ ‘dossing with the daisies,’ and ‘lying under the blue blanket’.
1897		E.W. Townsend Chimmie Fadden 57: If you snooze – why, when you wake up you ain’t in it.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 8 Dec. 146: Can’t you do anything better than snooze like that?
1915		Comic Life 13 Feb. 1: Here they were still snoozing.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 386: The way you’d sling me off to the movies when I wanted to stay home and snooze.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 229: Old Granny Deeps would sit snoozing outside the minute stone house on the corner.
1949		H. Miller Sexus (1969) 162: Snoozing beside a quiet canal in the heart of France.
1959		S. Bellow Henderson The Rain King 229: I felt like [...] snoozing, anything except tackling such hard material.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 329: If you snooze you lose!
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 44: She did not lie down [...] preferring to walk around or snooze on an upturned milk-crate.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 90: It was lovely. I was laying on the grass in the sun and snoozing.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 27 Feb. 11: At her age – 68 – snoozing is good.

3. (US) to rob sleeping fellow residents at a boarding house.

1846

N.Y. Herald 14 Jan. 2/5: The hotel keepers would do well to call at the Chief’s office and get a ‘spot’ of the fellow before he is discharged, for no doubt he has been ‘snoozing’ in a number of hotels.