Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. drunk, off-balance.

1801		A. Ellicott in Mathews Andrew Ellicott (1908) 201: He was two thirds slewed (as the Rahway people call being in liquor) .
1833		A. Greene Life and Adventures of Dr Dodimus Duckworth II 176: He was seldom downright drunk; but was often [...] devilishly slewed.
1836		Lancaster Gaz. 12 Nov. 4/2: ‘The truth on it is, I was a little bit slued’.
1837		Knickerbocker (N.Y.) ix (Feb.) 201: Night is the time for those / Who, when they take their wine, / By redness of the nose / [...] / Give evidence, whence we conclude / That they’re unquestionably slew’d.
1840		Era (London) 18 Oct. 5/4: I was regularly slewed, ’cause the Deaf-un and me was having a drain at the Magpie and Stump in Newgate-street.
1843–44		Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit (1995) 453: He came into our place one night to take her home; rather slued, but not much.
1846		D. Corcoran Pickings from N.O. Picayune 101: I’m blow’d if you ain’t either slew’d, mad, or in love.
1853		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 1 Oct. n.p.: Jed hasn’t the courage of a sheep, only when he gets about two-thirds ‘slewed’.
1865		M. MacFie Vancouver Island and British Columbia 420: Neither shalt thou destroy thyself by getting ‘tight,’ nor ‘slewed,’ nor ‘high,’ nor ‘corned,’ nor ‘half-seas over,’ nor ‘three sheets in the wind’.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 220: When the man of the Western frontier is not dry, he is very apt to be slewed.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 75: Slewed, drunk.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Dear Loaf’ Sporting Times 29 Jan. 1/4: Leaving oof about means gettin’ slewed; / So I took the silver with me for the errands, and all that, / And I hid the quid, for fear it might get blewed!
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight.
1936		Derbyshire Times 19 June 6/5: A man more or less drunk is [...] ‘slued’.
1941		M. Prenner ‘Drunk in Sl.’ in AS XVI:1 Jan. 70/1: slewed.
1958		F. Norman in Sun. Graphic 23 Nov. in Norman’s London (1969) 38: It wasn’t all that long before a few birds, and geezers too come to that, were getting a bit slued.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 90: Fred was getting a bit belligerent the way some geezers do when they get slewed.

2. confused, baffled.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1086/2: late C.19–earlier 20.

3. (Aus.) lost, esp. in the bush.

1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 9/1: Nearly every man Jack of them was slain, and a hundred to one those of them who weren’t slain were slewed.
1890		H. Morant ‘Slewed!’ in Cutlack Breaker Morant (1962) 137: Whilst Paddy, half screwed, / Ne’er dreamt for an instant how much he was slewed.
1929		K.S. Prichard Coonardoo 167: We separated, followin’ tracks, and I managed to get slewed.

4. (Aus.) disappointed.

1895

Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 75: Slewed, [...] disappointed.