Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also in the fog) drunk, tipsy.

1517		Skelton Elynour Rummynge line 480: She drank so of the dregges, The dropsy was in her legges [...] All foggy fat she was.
1592		Greene Quip for an Upstart Courtier E: A fat knaue with a foggie face, wherein a cup of old sacke hath set a seale to marke the bowsie drunkard to die of the dropsie.
1637		J. Taylor Drinke and Welcome 5: For muddy, foggy, fulsome, puddle, stinking, / For all of these, Ale is the onely drinking.
1711		N. Ward Vulgus Britannicus I 9: Some liquor’d with Foggy Ale, / Others with Glorious Mild and Stale.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 449: The weather had cleared up as their brains had been getting foggy.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 July 3/1: When Moggy became rather foggy, sweet revenge rose uppermost in her mind.
1850		Fast Man 9:1 n.p.: Sort of sentimental swipey spouter [...] , who never drinks with the lads [...] yet’s always ‘foggy’.
1853		W.G. Simms Sword and the Distaff 310: Not exactly drunk, but a little in the fog.
1864		London Standard 13 Dec. 3/3: The slang synonyms for mild intoxication are [...] Bosky [...] Foggy [...] Kisky.
1867		Newcastle Guardian 26 Oct. 2/3: Their brains foggy and dazed with the fumes of whisky.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 12 Oct. 4/4: ‘My father’s only son often gets foggy when he’s half seas over’.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 30: Foggy, tipsy.
1906		Salt Lake City (UT) 30 Mar. 4/5: He is [...] hazy, foggy.
1918		H.V. O’Brien diary 5 July Wine, Women and War (1926) 137: I, slightly foggy, talked all sorts of irrevelevancies.
1921–2		(?) H. Lawson ‘The Last Rose of Winter’ in Roderick (1972) 912: It always seems like afternoon and evening to Jack when he’s foggy.
1976		R. Morrieson Pallet on the Floor 116: Sam, already foggy with drink, let the seconal take over.

2. confused, not very intelligent.

1649		J. Taylor Wanderings to see Wonders of West 5: The thing I was mounted on was neither horse, mare, or gelding, it was all spirit [...] It was none of your pursy foggy jades.
1771		Foote Maid of Bath I iv: Your rival is a fusty, foggy, lumbering log.
c.1790		‘Larry’s Stiff’ Luke Caffrey’s Gost 7: You know dat fat Peg’s devilish foggy.
1820		‘Peter Corcoran’ ‘King Tims the First’ Fancy 28: Your royal intellect is in eclipse; / The ruin you’ve drawn down upon your lips, / Has made it rather foggy.
1843		Gleaner (Manchester, NH) 4 Nov. n.p.: What say you [...] don’t this look foggy?
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 61: Why, you nunk, couldn’t you tumble to the pallary, nanty tumble to the queerums, a foggy nobbed’un?
1851		Bell’s Life in Sydney 31 May 1/6: In the 34th [round] Massey seemed to be getting ‘foggy’.
1884		H. Smart Post to Finish I 24: What with drinking old Bill’s health and Phaeton’s, I’m a litle foggy as yet as to where we’ve got in the week.
1896		G.M. Fenn Sappers and Miners 137: Oh, I say, Jolly-wet, what a foggy old chap you are.
1906		A.H. Lewis Confessions of a Detective 12: ‘What are you driving at?’ I asked; for at twenty-one I was over-innocent, with plenty to learn, and Mugsey’s observations were foggy.
1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 15: His head was again foggy with work and he had forgotten if there was still April anywhere.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 28: I’m a bit foggy as to what jute is.
1936		Wodehouse ‘The Amazing Hat Mystery’ in Young Men in Spats 101: Percy [...] was a bit foggy on angels.
1943		H.A. Smith Life in a Putty Knife Factory (1948) 49: I’ve always considered Pedgler to be one of the great writers of our day, but he has a foggy noodle [...] his thinking apparatus is warped.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 220: A little later my thinking became foggy again.
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 54: You were observing her son with a view to finding out if he was foggy between the ears.
1964		H.S. Thompson letter 7 Apr. in Proud Highway (1997) 448: Your foggy tome arrived yesterday.
1965		R.L. Pike Mute Witness (1997) 66: She’s foggy, dazed. I gave her a hell of a shock.
1974		R. Blount About Three Bricks Shy of a Load 87: I kept going, foggy as hell.