Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a state of drunkenness; esp. as have a bun, get/have/put/tie a bun on; occas. a drugged state.

1899		W.J. Kountz Billy Baxter’s Letters 8: The minute I got into that suit, I fell off the water wagon with an awful bump [...] Oh! But I got a lovely bun on.
1901		‘Hugh McHugh’ Down the Line 66: It is Willie’s joy and delight to get a ginger ale bun on and recite ‘’Ostler Joe’.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 59: I’m supposed to have a bun on or I wouldn’t let you take it [i.e. a photo].
1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 275: Oh, every gelmun gits a bun on onct in a while.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 572: bun(dle), n. A load of liquor. ‘He has a bun on to-night.’.
1919		H.C. Witwer Smile A Minute 147: You never could drink anyways, and used to get a bun on from readin’ a beer sign outside a saloon.
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 254: You got a bun on downstairs, and I couldn’t do nothin’ with you.
1925		J. Tully Beggars of Life 29: Her cousin was a drunkard in Cincy, / He died with a peach of a bun.
1931		A. Hardin ‘Volstead English’ in AS VII:2 87: Terms referring to the state of intoxication: Got a bun on.
1934		J.L. Kuethe ‘Prison Parlance’ in AS IX:1 26: bun (to have a bun on). To be intoxicated or doped.
1940		E. O’Neill Long Day’s Journey into Night Act I: And who do you think I met there, with a beautiful bun on, but Shaughnessy.
1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act III: Aw, yuh got a fine bun on now!
1941		W. Winchell On Broadway 12 Feb. [synd. col.] He doesn’t know what it means to have ‘a bun on.’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1964		Kerouac letter 8 Dec. in Charters II (1999) 387: I went to jail on Thanksgiving night for putting a bun on.
1975		J. Ryan Remembering How We Stood 97: He was still a bit of a ‘bun man’.

2. (US) a state of weeping.

1908

K. McGaffey Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xiii: One of the girls that dresses in the same room with me came in with one of those crying buns on.

3. (US) a fit of laughter.

1918

H.C. Witwer Baseball to Boches 116: On the level, it was more like havin’ a laughin’ bun on than anything else!

4. (US) whisky.

1927

Clark & Eubank Lockstep and Corridor 173: Bun—whisky.