Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to become drunk, to make oneself drunk; thus fuddler n., a drunk; fuddling school n., an ale house.

c.1600		Timon in Dyce (1842) II v: Ile giue thou ale [...] Which, if thou drinke, shall fuddle thee hande and foote.
1655		Mercurius Fumigosus 43 21–28 Mar. 344: That all Drunkards may have four leggs, and four eyes to Convoy them from the Fudling School home.
1659		Mercurius Democritus 7-14 June47: Being so hard at the old game of Fudling, [they were so confounded in their brains that they forgot what stock [i.e. of money] was left.
1657		T. Jordan Walks of Islington and Hogsdon II i: If an good fellow will give me some Beer, I’ll Fiddle and fuddle, and ner’e give o’re.
1663		A. Cowley Cutter of Coleman-street (1721) 742: The Persons [...] Mr. Soaker, a little fudling Deacon.
1675		Head Art of Wheedling 300: They used to sometimes fuddle together.
1685		G. Meriton In Praise of York-shire Ale 27: You’l find us true blue Fudling Bullies still.
1689		R. L’Estrange Erasmus Colloquies 274: You may be sure they [waggoners] are at their Brandy; and the longer they Fuddle, the more danger of Over-turning.
1691		N. Ward ‘The Poet’s Ramble after Riches’ Writings (1704) 3: There I made the Bumpkin Fuddle, / Till muddy Ale had seiz’d his Noddle.
1700		‘Old English Ale’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy II 107: If they be Drunk, ’tis but their Kind, / To fuddle their Caps with Ipse.
1711		N. Ward Vulgus Britannicus III 40: From whence some Saints inclin’d to Fuddling, / Are most Religious when they’re Maudling.
1724		A. Ramsay Tea-table Misc. (1733) I 6: Wine will make us red as roses [...] Come, let us fuddle all our noses.
1726		Select Trials at Old Bailey (1742) III 54: I had been fuddling with some Friends at the King’s Arms Tavern at Charing-Cross, till I was grown Top heavy.
1764		Low-life 32: Publick Houses [...] setting their bad liquors aside from the good, for the Use of [...] conceited Fudlers in the Afternoon.
1771		R. King New London Spy 84: The doctor shall hunt, fight, or fuddle with the best of ’em.
1790		‘The Irish Morsho’ North Country Maid 3: I set sail from Dublin the eighteenth of June / Resol’d to keep fuddling my pipes in full tune.
1806–7		J. Beresford Miseries of Human Life (1826) 250: Sure, fuddling a trade is / Not lovely in Ladies, / Since it thus can disguise a / Soft sylph like Eliza.
1812		W. Tennant Anster Fair I xix 12: His cheeks seem spunges oozing port and claret; In marrying [...] I’ll not have you, thou fuddler Harry Melvil!
1812		J. Bell Jr. (ed.) Rhymes of Northern Bards 301: He sits with his pipe in his cheek, / And he fuddles his money away.
1828		Edinbury Gleaner 82: This day few Snabs [sic] are sober, The craft being all for fuddling keen.
1833		M. Scott Tom Cringle’s Log (1862) 213: But, d--m me, if it be either gentleman-like or Christian-like, to be after funning and fuddling, while a fellow creature [...] stands before you all but dead.
1834		‘Tom Tinker’ in Flare-Up Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 280: All day he will fuddle, all night he will tuck.
1837		‘The Sedgfield Frolic’ in Rum Ti Tum! in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 177: We will tipple and fuddle our noses, / Our frolic to complete.
1843–44		Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit (1995) 320: For which reason they generally fuddled themselves before they began to do anything.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 15 Apr. 3/2: Great complaint [...] sack all fuddlers.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 336: Fuddler, Slimgut, Tippler, Thickskull, / Spitfire, Sponger, Upstart, Clumps.
1856		J. Strang Glasgow and Its Clubs 259: The thirsty cease from fuddling. [Ibid.] 397: A knot of mischievous dare-devils returning fuddle-pated from a tavern.
1857		T. Hughes Tom Brown’s School-Days (1896) 107: Then there’s fuddling about in the public-house and drinking bad spirits, and punch, and such rot-gut stuff.
1864		Bentley’s Misc. IX 208: Independent electors of Swill-cum-Fuddle!
1884		Leics. Chron. 31 May 12/2: I’m not going to encourage you in fuddling away every penny you get.
1911		L. Stone Jonah 40: He discovered that the bricklayer, sober as a judge through the week, was in the habit of fuddling himself on pay-day.
1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 265: And the Second Edition became shabby like the first, and in the fullness of time fuddled himself to death.

2. to have sexual intercourse [euph. for fuck v. (1)].

1683		Fifteen Real Comforts of Matrimony 99: What greater pleasure can a man have, than to fuddle with his own Wife?
c.1795		diary cited in C. Lyrons Sex among the Rabble 251–2: I rolled her over and fuddled her.

3. to render drunk.

1700		N. Ward ‘A Step to Stir-Bitch-Fair’ Writings (1704) 258: Unless it’s so Strong, / ’Twill Fuddle e’er long, / Both me and my Brother Vicar.
1734		J. Gay Distress’d Wife II i: One would think, Girl, thou hadst a Mind to fuddle me.
1752		‘The Clerk’s Song’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 304: He drank one night to such a pass, / That he fuddled poor Uriah.
1770		Foote Lame Lover in Works (1799) II 83: Come, Hob or Nob, Master Circuit – let us try if we can’t fuddle the Serjeant.
1786		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Epistle to Boswell’ Works (1794) I 318: Beer from tubs it flows! [...] it boasts the merit Of never fuddling people with the spirit!
1837		‘The Butterfly Bishop’ Bentley’s Misc. July 19: The wine that thou hast already drunken hath fuddled thy brains.
1873		Tinsley’s Mag. XIII 564: Bring the Jew too, and we’ll speedily fuddle him [...] Addle the brains of the wicked old scamp.
1882		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 8 Sept. 7/4: Fuddling became the order of the evening.
1899		C.J.C. Hyne Further Adventures of Captain Kettle 135: We shall want very clear heads [...] and I’m not going to fuddle mine.
1917		‘Henry Handel Richardson’ Aus. Felix (1971) 32: There’s good in all of ’em – even in old Mother Flannigan ’erself – and ’specially when she’s got a drop inside ’er. Fuddle old Moll a bit, and she’d give you the shift off her back.