Green’s Dictionary of Slang

muddled adj.

drunk.

c.1597		Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 2 II iv: You muddy rascal [...] Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Muddled, half Drunk.
1712		J. Arbuthnot Hist. of John Bull 77: I was for five years often drunk, always muddled.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737		B. Franklin ‘Drinkers Dictionary’ in Pennsylvania Gazette 6 Jan. in AS XII:2 91: They come to be well understood to signify plainly that A MAN IS DRUNK. [...] Muddled.
1795		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Liberty’s Last Squeak’ Works (1801) V 77: Behold a youth with muddled brain, Reeling, the Lord knows where, a little drunk.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 43: At length Domingo, after playing a good knife and fork, and getting gloriously muddled, took himself off to the stable.
1812		W. Combe Doctor Syntax, Picturesque (1868) 22/1: The home-brew’d beer began / To prey upon the inward man: / And Syntax, muddled, did not know / Or where he was, or where to go.
1833		A. Greene Life and Adventures of Dr Dodimus Duckworth II 176: He was seldom downright drunk; but was often [...] a little muddy.
1840		Marryat Poor Jack 366: Every Frenchman was either fast asleep or muddled.
1848		North-Carolinan (Fayetteville, NC) 18 Nov. 1/6: Drunk [...] muddled, o-be-joyful, been sucking the monkey.
1853		Dickens ‘Slang’ in Household Words 24 Sept. 75/2: For the one word drunk [...] moony, muddled, muzzy, swipey, lumpy, obfuscated [etc.].
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 25/2: We were all getting ‘pretty tolerable’ by this time [...] and not wishing to get too muddled before the bet came off, proposed a walk out on the pier.
1872		Daily Tel. 5 Jan. ‘The Clerical Scandal.’ n.p.: The vicar [...] appeared to be muddled [F&H].
1894		A. Morrison Tales of Mean Streets (1983) 31: Billy, too, had a vague impression, muddled by but not drowned in half-pints, that some degree of plush was condign to the occasion.
1908		G. Seagram Bushman All 176: He was a little muddled with drink.
1927		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 11: There was a young man named Hughes / Who swore off all kinds of booze. / He said, ‘When I’m muddled / My senses get fuddled, / And I pass up too many screws.’.
1938		J.E. Hoover Persons in Hiding 197: Muddled with drink, he had talked too much.
1972		E. Shrake Strange Peaches 335: [W]e went [...] for another drink before going home. I was fairly muddled by then.