Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a general term of abuse; also attrib.

1920		B. MacNamara Clanking of Chains 154: They might have a few pounds saved from the money they had got from passing through hell, and immediately they would fall into the hands of the corner-boys and lowest ‘bowsies’ of Ballycullen.
1926		S. O’Casey Plough and the Stars Act II: Here, out you go, me little bowsey.
1939		(con. 1880–90s) S. O’Casey I Knock at the Door 181: You’ll hold my coat for me, sonny, he said, and watch me turning the faces of two bowseys into chunks of bleeding beef.
c.1940–5		in ‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Best of Myles (1968) 230: He was the best man in the world for clever honest fun, for sneering at bores, bluffs and bowsies.
1945		(con. 1900s) S. O’Casey Drums Under the Windows 141: Never mind, went on the poor old man, bouseys will be bouseys.
1953		B. Behan Scarperer (1966) 109: It’d ruin me if I was caught with a gang of bowsies the likes of yous.
1961		(con. 1890–1910) ‘Flann O’Brien’ Hard Life (1962) 35: Well, damn the cardboard shields the Dominicans used in Spain, those bloodstained bowsies.
1962		B. Behan Brendan Behan’s Island (1984) 100: Oh, I didn’t mean a bowsy the like of that. Sure, that fellow is an impostherer of low degree.
1970		C. Brown Down All the Days 192: Don’t be seeing that drunken bowsie, her black-shawled little ferret of an aunt would say.
1989		H. Leonard Out After Dark 166: Such credentials defined him as a ‘character’, which is usually a Dublinese synonym for a bowsie or gurrier.
1994		(con. 1930s) K.C. Kearns Dublin Tenement Life 198: He was a kind of a bowsy.
1995		Leinster Leader (Naas, County Kildare) 15 June n.p.: He denied suggestions by solicitor Mr Conal Boyce that he was ‘a bit of a thug’, or that he ‘acted the absolute bousy’ [BS].
1995		P. Boland Tales from a City Farmyard 213: A real bowsie of a fellow from Maryland had died.
2002		T.P. Coogan Wherever Green Is Worn 476: : Rugby is a bowsie game played by gentlemen, soccer is a gentlemen's game played by bowsies.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 67: He killt all moy family [...] but sure they were royt bowsies so dee were.
2010		C. Murphy [bk title] The Feckin’ Book of Bankers, Builders, Blaggers and Bowsies that Banjaxed the Nation.

2. (Irish) a street urchin, a lout.

1914		Joyce Dubliners (1956) 118: Sure, amn’t I never done at the drunken bowsy ever since he left school?
1922		Joyce Ulysses 6: How are the secondhand breeks? / – They fit well enough, Stephen answered. [...] / – The mockery of it, he said contentedly, secondleg they should be. God knows what poxy bowsy left them off.
1939		‘Flann O’Brien’ At Swim-Two-Birds 176: Answer me, you bloody little bowsy you! roared Shorty.
1942		S. O’Casey Red Roses for Me Act II: A gang of bowseys made for me [...] Barely escaped with my life.
1950		L. O’Flaherty Insurrection 12: ‘You dirty bowsies!’ he cried.
1961		(con. 1930s) D. Behan Teems of Times and Happy Returns 211: Get up an’ open it, Dominic. It’s one of your bowsey friends.
1972		(con. 1930s–40s) N. Conway Bloods 32: Tell that bowsie to shut his mouth.
1982		(con. 1930s–50s) E. Mac Thomáis Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 152: All through the pictures the usher [...] roared at us to keep quiet. ‘Shut up yous animals, shut up yous blackguards, shut up yous bowsies.’.
1991		R. Doyle Van (1998) 567: Bloody bowsies, he said [...] Yeh shouldn’t encourage them.
2001		G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Bouzzie, Bowsie (n): young good-for-nothing, who hangs around on street corners.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 145: He’s a bowsie. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work it out.