Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. extremely drunk, to the point of passing out cold.

1841		Sydney Gaz. (Aus.) 14 Sept. 2/4: She (Mrs Commack) with a stare of of paralatic astonishment, turned round upon her toe — a glass of London particular in one hand, and the bottle [...] in the other.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 25 Mar. 2/4: We recommend the paraletic Commander-in-Chief, of the army of In-vincibles, not to be seen too often coming home from the ‘little house under the hill’, in Liverpool-street.
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 72: Your dram-drinker [...] is not unfrequently paralytic, wofully shaky in the hand.
1884		Sporting Times 4 Oct. 7/1: Q. Into mow many classes is mankind divided? A. Into seven: enlightened, civilised, half-civilisd, savage, rather on, speechless, and paralytic .
1892		Albert Chevalier ‘Yer Never Ask’d ’Im For It’ 🎵 A copper comes along, and [...] Declares I’m paraletic, too, An’ takes us to the station.
1900		Sporting Times 6 Jan. 1/5: Two hours later the old lady met the beggar with a paralytic jag on him.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 22 May 1/1: Two Terrace toffs [...] got paralytic at the Palace.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Aug. 44/1: I would have gone before, but the effects of the whisky hadn’t passed off, and it was wonderful what a lot those Highlanders could take before getting helplessly stone-blind-paralytic. Half my month’s screw wouldn’t wipe out the score on the slate.
1926		K.S. Prichard Working Bullocks 82: It was no good telling you last night. You was paralytic.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 227: He may be blind drunk, speechless, paralytic.
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 76: I don’t mean paralytic [...] but I heard that he’s getting his whack.
1959		D. Hewett Bobbin Up (1961) 61: Me mum goes on the booze every now and then, gets blind paralytic, don’t know what she’s doin’.
1966		(con. 1954) J. McGrath Events While Guarding the Bofors Gun I iii: They’ll all be paralytic in the Naffi.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 34: If you could only stay sober instead of getting paralytic at the wrong time.
1977		(con. 1961) J. Rosenthal Spend, Spend, Spend Scene 30: I believe they were paralytic in the Miners Arms.
1980		J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 107: It ends up he gets breathalysed, because he’s actually paralytic.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 88: SHANE. I musta knocked back a few. AARON. Ya were paraletic.
1990		R. Doyle Snapper 44: She’d been really drunk, absolutely paralytic.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 303: Gene took Terry, Cody and Mickey over to some boozer in Ealing to get them paralytic.
2016		Oxford Student 20 May 33/3: Only solution is to become so paralytic that you are a figment of your own imagination.

2. (US und.) posing as a paralysed person to attract alms.

1903

Ye Quaint Mag. (Boston, MA) Nov. 23/1: ‘Chi Slim’ made [...] some $50 a week for years, in an hour or two a day, playing paralytic.