Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a drunkard; also attrib.

1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 21: And lately had Poson’d himself, / With bumpers of claret, / No Souse paing for it.
1905		A. Binstead Mop Fair 140: An all-night souse without shoes or socks.
1908		N.Y. Tribune 23 Feb. 34/1: She was just a lady souse, with [...] a breath like a whiff of sewer gas.
1917		R. Lardner ‘The Facts’ Coll. Short Stories (1941) 467: ‘Where to?’ asked a porter. ‘Souse,’ said Billy. ‘I can see that [...] but where you goin’?’.
1919		A. Baer Metropolitan Hotels 1 Jan. [synd. col.] Souse conventions in every corridor.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 4: [They] were piling into the high-powered Buzz-Wagons for a Spin out to the Home for Polite Souses.
1930		K. Brush Young Man of Manhattan 221: Hey, wake up, you big souse!
1940		E. O’Neill Long Day’s Journey into Night Act III: A dumb barmaid, who thought he was a poor crazy souse.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 19: We had three gimlets, not doubles, and it didn’t do a thing to him. That much would just get a real souse started.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 234: You’d only spend it on spirits, poor souse that you are.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 127: One who is intoxicated with alcohol—a boozehound, rummy, sot, souse, or wino if habituallly so.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 263: A fat souse who pumped your hand.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 103: The rest of them just think I’m a souse.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 84: Chief Parker’s a souse.

2. a state of drunkenness.

1901		‘Hugh McHugh’ Down the Line 106: His chips were all in and he was Simon with the Souse, for sure.
1909		H. Green Mr. Jackson 55: So he hot footed up the line an’ collected himself one bad souse. He come rollin’ in at daylight, down an’ out.
1914		Day Book (Chicago) 5 Mar. 8/1: [He] gets an awful souse at the wedding supper and [...] blabs it all out.
1914		‘Hugh McHugh’ You Should Worry cap. 5: Despair would grab him and, like Dike, he'd be Simpson with the souse thing for sure.
1920		A. Baer Speeches of Fuller Durham 8 Aug. [synd. col.] There are tides in the lives of all gents, which, if taken at the flood, lead to an awful souse.
1927		Minneapolis Star (MN) 12 Nov. 22/1: ‘Dehorns [...] eat canned heat to get a souse’.

3. a drinking bout.

1903		‘Hugh McHugh’ Out for the Coin 52: He gets good and kippered with the souse thing.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 173: ‘You must a-had a souse last night,’ Tom grinned.
1919		A. Baer Two & Three 24 Dec. [synd. col.] The senator from Pennsylvania will object to the senator from the south sleeping off a souse at the Pennsylvania gentleman’s desk.
1929		C. Coe Hooch! 6: Just as soon’s he gets his pay he’s off on a grand souse.
1933		W. Scott ‘Take ’Im Alive’ Und. Mag. May 🌐 Greetings, Hardhead. Going to shell out like a beer baron on a souse, eh?