Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an alcoholic.

1880		G.B. Shaw Letter 29 Nov. in Coll. Letters 1874–1897 (1965) 36: How long do you suppose an average woman (dipso as described) would last alive after the inability to retain food or drink set in?
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Aug. 18/1: Beer lost its savor; so did whisky, rum / And gin. I sourly steered / Away from drink, and remained cold and dumb, / While gladsome dipsos cheered.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Aug. 15/2: Lara is the Victorian national amphitheatre where the local dipso. conducts gladiatorial combats with his personal devils, and vanquishes them with great slaughter. I once met a couple of salvaged alcohol-lovers, on their way from Lara to a life of teetotalism.
1912		Truth (Wellington) 6 Apr. 6/4: The wy in which certain well-known dipsos. fracture their prohibitions order.
1926		F.M. Ford Man Could Stand Up 110: Better’n a bleedin’ dipso!
1944		E. Wilson 21 Dec. [synd. col.] [heading] Diary of a Dipso .
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 62: What, is she a dipso?
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 93: There were creepers and kleptoes and zanies and dipsos.
1959		D. Niland Gold in the Streets (1966) 210: Let’s get out of here before I do me block with this old dippo.
1964		P. White Burnt Ones 294: I’m not gunna stand by and watch any kid of mine [...] turn ’isself into a bloody dipso!
1976		‘Hergé’ Tintin and the Picaros 4: Off to bed, you old dipso. Sleep off the booze!
1976		H. Leonard Time Was (1981) Act I: You ship the dipsos off to be dried out.
1993		M. Dibdin Dying of the Light 110: Man’s a dipso, of course.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 155: [O]ut spring three wallopers who promptly lumber Lennie and the three dipsos and cart them all off to the nearest wal-shop .
1999		P. McCabe Mondo Desperado 10: Fooling around with every two-bit dipso and loser musician.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 24: Startling extremes of the chronic dipso who just happens not to be drinking at the mo.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Irish Fandango [ebook] ‘[B]ooze for breakfast is the sure sign of a dipso’.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 10: Drunks are ‘bibulous bottle hounds’ and ‘dyspeptic dipsos’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 505: ‘Denying an irritable bowel a toilet it’s like denying a dipso a drink’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

2002

J. Ellroy ‘Where I Get My Weird Shit’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 34: Our dipso neighbor stocking up on scotch and cigarettes.