soak v.1
1. in context of alcohol.
(a) (also soak up) to drink heavily.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Belman of London D3: They lye soaking with a Dopye in a tipling house. | |
| Holborn Drollery 76: These are the solid prudent Boys, That soak a Hogshead without noise. | |
| ‘Well-Wishes to the Royal Family’ in Roxburghe Ballads (1885) V:1 151: Who, [while] smoaking and soaking, wish the Return of the Rump. | |
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: To set soking, to ply the Pot. | |
 | Voyages I 419: Scarce a ship goes to China but the Men come home fat with soaking this Liquor [Arrack] [F&H]. | |
| Parson’s Revels (2010) 88: But Oaf could soke, as well as funk. | |
| Dict. Eng. Lang. (1785). | |
| Vicar of Wakefield (1883) 163: You do nothing but soak with the guests all day long. | |
| song in Bullfinch 112: Such soaking, such smokeaking, and joking, / Such guzzling here you see. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Sporting Mag. Mar. XI 344/1: When soaking Sam, who ev’ry day, / To Sot’s Holde went, to souse his clay. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| ‘Job Halls And Mike Hunt’ in Lummy Chaunter 83: In the Feathers you’d find him soaking with Mike Hunt. | |
| ‘The Lord of Thoulouse’ in Ingoldsby Legends (1847) 188: Smoking, and joking, / And soaking, provoking / Such headaches next day. | |
| General Bounce (1891) 169: For the beggars delight / To sit soaking all night. | |
| Won in a Canter II 133: ‘[Y]ou young fellows [...] go on soaking all the day long, and then you cannot enjoy your liquor when the proper time comes for it’. | |
| Scarlet City 317: The driver was soaking in a public-house. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | It’s Up to You 59: Ned Burnham had a long bottle of boozelene, and he insisted that I should soak it all up. | |
| Everlasting Mercy 7: Faces of men who’d never been / Merry or true or live or clean; [...] Nor took a punch nor given a swing, / But just soaked deady round the ring. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Truth (Melbourne) 24 Jan. 6/3: [headline] Sunday Soaking [...] Legally Drinking in Prohibited Bars. | |
| True Drunkard’s Delight 248: Less drastic after-effects of soaking, such as head, or a sore head. | |
| Fast One (1936) 52: She soaked up a couple of bottles of Scotch. | |
| Moonlight (1995) 349: They’re always soaking tea together in some hole or corner. | |
| Through Beatnik Eyeballs 14: No wonder you grovel after bread, give filthy love-signs, and soak the juice. | |
| Campus Sl. Mar. 1: Let’s go to the Bacchae and soak some brew. | |
| Birthday 129: Soak down a few jars. | |
| Soho 126: I suggest you go piss it out wherever you soaked it up. |
(b) to ply with liquor.
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | O’Hara Tales 272: ‘Well?’ questioned the woman, in a sharp whisper; ‘you pumped him? and soaked him?’. | |
| St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) 8 Feb. 17/1: The ‘bulls’ [...] planned to ‘soak’ the popular chief detective. |
(c) to spend money on drink.
| Girl Proposition 104: Although his Salary didn’t make him round-shouldered taking it Home, he was enabled to soak a couple of Frog Skins each Month. |
2. in monetary senses.
(a) to pawn; to give as collateral.
| From Desert to Bayou (1991) 8: Privat Whight soaked his bunky's boots for a bottle of whisky. | |
| Champagne Charlie! n.p.: On the previous day he had been compelled to soak his sword for a few dollars to pay for the cleaning of his coat. | |
| S.F. Trade Herald Aug. 2/2: To soak—to hock—Yer upper benjamin at yer uncle’s, to get the ‘sugar’ for a good square meal [DA]. | |
| America Revisited II 133: ‘Hock my sparks,’ ‘soak my gems,’ and ‘Walker my diamonds.’ [...] American euphemisms for the act of pawning your jewellery. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 19 Jan. 3/1: Forest’s watch was once offered to him, but he refused it, on the recommendation of a friend in the pawnbroking business, because it couldn’t be ‘soaked’ for more than $3. | |
| Barkeep Stories 64: ‘De odder guy soaks his benny to de dealer fer fifteen an’ dey blows dat. Den he soaks a super he has on an’ dey blows dat’. | |
| St Paul Globe (MN) 31 Dec. 11/6: I went and soaked my watch. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 327: Yuh ain’t went and soaked that big ring, have yuh? | |
| Valley of the Moon (1914) 99: I’ve soaked my watch when I was hard up, and I can calculate interest. | |
| ‘The Scorched Face’ Story Omnibus (1966) 74: They soaked the stuff Monday before they went away. | |
| et al. DAUL 201/2: Soak, v. [...] 3. To pawn. |
(b) (US campus) to borrow [one leaves one’s possession ‘to soak’].
| Okolona Messenger (MS) 22 Oct. 3/1: College slang [...] ‘swipe’, ‘soak’, ‘hen-medic’, ‘goose-egg’, ‘crib’. | |
| ‘College Sl. Words And Phrases’ in DN IV:iii 235: soak, v. To borrow. | |
| ‘Slouch’ in Amer. Dream Girl (1950) 102: She soaks me for fifty bucks I was savin’ up for the wedding bells. |
(c) (US) to put away.
| Bowery Life [ebook] I wouldn’t stan’ fer her lettin’ her last piece uv junk go. ‘Soak it [i.e. a ring] away agin, Kitty,’ sez I. |
3. see let it soak
In derivatives
drunken.
| ‘I Nothing Is But Drunk’ in Bullfinch 201: Bob Backstay was a soaking blade. |
very drunk.
| Song Smith 88: The Vintner he gets soaky, / The China-man gets in his cups. | |
| London Standard 13 Dec. 3/3: Graduating the scale of drunkeness from slight inebriation to the soaky state of gutterdom. |
In phrases
1. in prison.
| Terr. Enterprise 14 Sept. 3/1: There are a good many of the ‘boys’ over there in ‘soak’ [DA]. | |
| 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. | |
| Bill Nye and Boomerang 15: He made a compromise by offering to put Pythias in soak while the only genuine Damon went to see his girl. | |
| ‘’Ave a ’Eart!’ in Rose of Spadgers 80: ‘Not on yer life!’ I tells him. ‘Spike’s in soak, / [...] / An’ that removes one interferin’ bloke.’. | |
| et al. DAUL 201/2: Soak, n. 1. (Rare) prison or county jail. |
2. in pawn; thus soak n., pawn, a pawnshop; thus antonym out of soak.
| St Louis (MO) Reveille 10 Apr. 2/3: Printer’s fee, $250, not paid—but the poet begged hard, and left his hat ‘in soak’ that fits our devil [DA]. | |
| ‘The Jolly Vaquero’ in et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 337: Though often ‘dead broke’ – his saddle ‘in soak’. | |
| Texas Cow Boy (1950) 108: John came [...] to get his horse and saddle out of ‘soak’. | |
| letter 10 Jan. in Byrkit Letters from the Southwest (1989) 233: Full of blankets, belts, guns, and jewelry ‘in soak’ for the necessities of life. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Sept. 14/1: [H]e was once more hard up after putting all his clothing into ‘soak’ with his favorite ‘uncle.’. | |
| Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 11 June 33/4: My sword will not be buried with me but will be placed in soak at the ‘Sign of the Three Balls’. | |
| ‘Awful Moanin’ Blues’ 🎵 I’ve got no friend, I can’t trust men / Everything’s in soak, and always broke / There’s no place where I can get a loan. | |
| We Pointed Them North (2003) 108: When a fellow was hired he would go to his girl and say: ‘I’ve got a job, but my bed’s in soak.’ [...] And she would lend him the money to get it back. | |
| et al. DAUL 201/2: Soak, n. [...] Pawn; pawn shop. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 137: She feeds me when I’m hungry and keeps my clothes out a soak [pawn]. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water 11: She feeds me when I’m hungry, keeps my clothes out a soak [hock], / and as long as I got this fabulous old broad I can’t be broke. |
3. (Aus.) drunk.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Nov. 9/2: King Billy was a monarch of some importance in those days, and experienced little difficulty in obtaining enough alcoholic stimulant to keep himself well ‘in soak’. |
SE in slang uses
In phrases
of a man, to linger before withdrawing one’s penis after intercourse.
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 175: Limer. To take time in the act of kind; ‘to lie in soak’; of men. | |
| Lustful Memoirs of a Young and Passionated Girl 24: He would stop shoving occasionally, letting his charmer remain buried in her. While letting it soak in this way he turned to me [...] and asked what I thought of screwing now. | |
| Bawdy N.Y. State MS. n.p.: ONE FUCK, soak all Night, – – – – – $2.5. | |
| in Erotic Muse (1992) 369: The elephant is a funny bloke / And very seldom gets a poke, / So when he does, he lets it soak / As he revels in the joys of fornication. | |
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. | |
| ‘Kathoozalem’ in (1979) 125: So here’s to all you gentle folk / Who love to have your nightly poke; / May you often let it soak / Within the fair Kathoozalem. | |
| ‘Christmas Eve Afternoon’ at Drunk Wives Stories 🌐 He let his cock soak inside her for a few moments then pulled out wiping his knob on her stocking tops. |
to drink, to quench one’s thirst.
| Gent.’s Mag. 559/2: To express the condition of an Honest Fellow [...] under the Effects of good Fellowship, [...] It is also said that he has [...] Soaked his Face. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) Straight from the Fridge Dad 171: Soak your face get drunk. |
see under chaffer n.2
(US) to drink away one’s possessions.
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. |
In exclamations
an abusive, dismissive remark.
| Whip and Satirist of N.Y. & Brooklyn 19 Feb. n.p.: He came out at the Little Drury, as one of the Sequin Opera Corps, was pelted, hissed and hooted off the stage. [...] He was told to go home and ‘soak his head,’ with which he complied. | |
| Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 14 Apr. n.p.: Go, soak thy withered head. | |
| Chelmsford Chron. 17 Dec. 7/1: [from N.Y. Tribune] He is thus addressed: ‘Good bye, old windy; good bye old gaspipe; go home and soak your head in whisky. | |
| Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA) 14 Oct. 1/5: ‘Oh, go home and soak your head’. | |
| ‘Two Larrikins’ in Roderick (1972) 231: Soak yer heads. | |
| People’s Reveille (Hill City, KS) 21 May 2/5: Go soak your head until your brain runs your think tank instead of your prejudice. | |
| ‘The Low Brow’ in Big League (2004) 23: ‘Aw, go soak your head!’ roared Merry savagely. | |
| Salt Lake Trib. (UT) 16 Nov. 83/6: ‘Aw, go soak your head!’ roared Merry savagely. | |
| Richmond Item (IN) 20 Jan. 4/1: ‘If you want me I’ll take the job and if you don’t [...] you can go soak your head’. | |
| (con. 1918) Rise and Fall of Carol Banks 248: Go soap your ear! | |
| Gospel According to St Luke’s 201: ‘Aw dry up!’ ‘To the can, stinkbomb!’ ‘Go soak your head!’. | |
| (con. 1910s) Heed the Thunder (1994) 242: ‘You just go soak your head,’ he advised. | |
| Muncie Eve. Press (IN) 27 Jan. 11/6: Big shot (patronizingly) — You’ve got a lot to learn about the picture business. [...] Me — Go soak your head in celery tonic. | |
| Mavericks (1968) 80: ‘Go soak your head,’ shouted Young Jake. | |
| Sea Fever 55: Aw, go soak your head. | |
| Star Press (Muncie, IN) 9 Nov. 18/1: ‘I’ve got to get to the hair drier!’ ‘Go soak your head’. | |
| L.A. Times 6 June B13/2: This land is blessed [...] with rights [...] the right to say ‘go soak your head’. | |
| Divided Minds 239: ‘Go soak your head,’ a rather mild insult, if I may say so myself. |