Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to riot; to act in a riotous manner.

1614		Jonson Bartholomew Fair Ii v: ’Slud, I’ll see him, and roar with him too.
1629		Dekker London’s Tempe n.p.: The gallant roars; roarers drink oathes and gall.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 12 16–23 Aug. 109: There you may see [...] Fidling and Piping, Ranting and Roaring, Smoking and Whoring.
1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 61: Down went their Cups, and to’t they fell, / Roaring and swaggering pell-mell.
1670–89		‘The Wanton Wife of Castle-Gate’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII:2 370: I hope therefore to find her, and then, brave boys, we’l rore.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 42: You can divert your self with roaring, / About your bus’ness, drinking, whoring.
1698		N. Ward London Spy II 45: He made more a roaring than half a dozen Drunken Porters.
1702		T. Brown Letters from the Dead to the Living in Works (1760) II 181: I discharg’d such a volley of new-coin’d oaths, and made such damn’d roaring and raving.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy II 22: There’s [...] Rage, Murder, and Roaring, / Rape, Incest, and Whoring.
1732		Progress of a Rake [title page]: III. His going to Brasen-Nose College at Oxford; being expell’d for his Debaucheries [...] with his Whoring, Roaring, Ranting, Swearing, Fighting &c.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 535: These trusty Trojans one and all, / Obey their roaring leader’s call, / Like him, they run, and roar, and shout.
1780		T. Gray Candidate 2: What a pother is here about wenching and roaring!
1778		song in Carey Sailor’s Songbag (1976) 32: We’ll call for Licker round boys we’ll pay before we go / For we’ll rore on the shore while the stormy winds do blow.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 108: City rabble [...] / Who roar all day, and drink all night.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel I 185: They go about roaring and seeking whom they may devour--doubtless, they like the food that they rage so much about.
1832		Satirist (London) 6 May 147/2: Now Moll she beginned for to rore, / Ven a clout of the head gived her warning / To shut her potato-trap down.
1840		R. Barham ‘Lay of St. Cuthbert’ Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 232: Ramping and roaring, / Hiccoughing, snoring, – / Never was seen such a riot before.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 118: The town’s roaring, I hear.

2. to complain; to inform.

1906		A.H. Lewis Confessions of a Detective 19: I don’t squeal when he gets his; he’s not goin’ to roar when I get mine.
1913		Day Book (Chicago) 6 Jan. 25/1: The express people will roar [...] the great public will roar becaus it is expecting too much.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 160: Roar.–To protest or complain as to the authorities.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 179/2: Roar, v. To protest loudly; to complain; to testify against accomplices or to furnish authorities with information leading to their arrest.
1954		(con. 1940s) E. Lambert Veterans 80: If it wasn’t spotless and perfectly ironed he’d roar the tripe out of me.

3. (Aus.) to be drunk.

1986

R.G. Barrett Godson 98: Two bottles of shampoo had them roaring a little.

4. (Irish) to weep.

1996

P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] Martina [...] was roaring her eyes out [...] She came to see me in The Joy a couple of days later and she was roarin crying, all upset.