Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a heavy drinker, a drunk.

1836		‘Let Shame Crown the Strumpet’ in Flash Casket 56: The measures of gatter let lushers display.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. III 59: He’s death on trappin’ lushers and them sort of crossmen. A cracksman ’asn’t a chance to get a decent livin’ while he goes a prowlin’ about a nabbin’ on ’em.
1863		Criminal Life (NY) 19 Dec. n.p.: Who said you were a lusher?
1895		Stevens Point (Wisc.) Daily Journal 6 Dec. 1/2: He [i.e. a squirrel] takes about three fingers of toddy without a breath and in a way that would put to blush any lusher in the community.
1912		H.G. van Campen ‘Our Theatrical Boarding House’ in L.A. Herald 26 Nov. 6/5: ‘I s’pose I’m the human sponge, ain’t I? A guy doin’ the work I am on the wlre’d do well bein’ a lusher’.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 79: There sat one lusher who had drowsed away in his chair.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 368: George William the gambler, the lusher, the smuggler.
1935		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 11 June [synd. col.] It [i.e. the ‘stinger’ cocktail] was the reputed invention of Jim Regan of the old Knickerblocker and the heaviest lushers would sag after 3.
1946		J.E. Dadswell Hey, Sucker 101: lusher ... habitual drinker.
1955		H. Braddy ‘Narcotic Argot Along the Mexican Border’ in AS XXX:2 87: LUSHER, n. A decayed drunkard who mixes marijuana with liquor.

2. a prostitute who preys on drunken customers.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

3. a public house.

1961

(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 23: What villain has been lurking round the village lusher slipping Scotch to the footmen.