Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bosky adj.

drunk.

1727		A. Boyer Dictionaire Royal n.p.: boosy, or bosky, Adj. (Merry, a litle in Drink).
1730		Bailey Dictionarium Brittanicum n.p.: Bosky, half or quite fuddled.
1770		Gent.’s Mag. Dec. 559/2: To express the condition of an Honest Fellow [...] under the Effects of good Fellowship, it is said that he is [...] 39. Bosky .
1781		‘Irish Ballad’ in Bullfinch 80: The old Devil gets wonderful bosky, / And all through a thirst after fame.
1791		‘Song’ in New Vocal Enchantress 33: Tipsy, dizzy, muzzy, sucky, groggy, muddled, / Bosky, blind as Chloe, mops and brooms and fuddled.
1801		C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 84: Thus Britons doat on being muzz’d, / And whether fresh or foggy, / By bosky Frenchmen won’t be buzz’d, Who thought to catch us groggy.
1819		Beppo in London l ii: In Madrid Beppo had some fun, Danc’d – tippl’d – bosky got.
1824		‘A Pembrochian’ Gradus ad Cantabrigiam 20: Now when he comes home fuddled, alias Bosky, I shall not be so unmannerly as to say his Lordship ever gets drunk.
1837		Kentish Gaz. 31 Jan. 3/2: And boskyish we’d roll, / Among the lushy-loving coves.
1838		W. Holloway Dict. of Provincialisms 16/1: Bosky, elated with liquor.
1853		Dickens ‘Slang’ in Household Words 24 Sept. 75/2: For the one word drunk [...] bosky, huffy, boozy, mops and brooms, half-seas-over [etc.].
1853		Bell’s Life in Sydney 30 July 3/1: He was thoroughly and unmitigatedly bosky, so much so, that he had lain down in the gutter.
1854		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 July 83/2’: ’Tis sad to see this Army’s head / Go reeling bosky to his bed.
1864		London Standard 13 Dec. 3/3: The slang synonyms for mild intoxication are [...] Bosky [...] Foggy [...] Kisky.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1886		‘’Arry’s Spring Thoughts’ in Punch 17 Apr. 185: I got a bit bosky last night. Has the ’eadache got into my rhymes?
1898		E. Pugh ‘The Inevitable Thing’ in Keating Working Class Stories of the 1890s (1971) 111: She was ’alf bosky then, an’ kep’ singin’ an’ laughin’ like a mad thing.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Nov. 11/1: Haven’t you in your time / Seen some wild soul advance, / Noisy, hilarious, / Palpably ‘in a trance’/ And likewise ‘paralyt- / Ic,’ ‘potty,’ ‘on his ear,’ / ‘Full,’ ‘sozzled,’ ‘bosky,’ ‘tanked,’ / ‘Boozed,’ ‘hitting up a tear’?
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 213: bosky, intoxicated. ‘He gets awful bosky’.
1918		N.Z. Truth (Wellington) 20 July 1: ‘Bosker’ is the Australian equivalent of a word that has fallen out of general use in Britain for over a century. ‘A ‘bosky’ time’ meant a good time, the same as ‘bosker’ time now does, although, to the confounding of the eighteenth century wowsers, it was generally used of one who had been looking upon wine when it was red. Those who saw the bibulous one on his way home would say, ‘He’s been having a ‘bosky’ time’.
1923		Kipling ‘The Janeites’ in Debits and Credits (1926) 149: He’d been a toff by birth; but that never showed till he was bosko absoluto. Mere bein’ drunk on’y made a common ’ound of ’im.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 33: Bosky: Mildly drunk. Dazed.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 231: Ginnified, has a touch of the bosky, is bosky, or bemused.
1945		L. Hoban ‘Time to Kill’ Crack Detective Jan. 🌐 He was corn-cockeyed, a boozed-bosky, a lush-lalapalooza.