Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. intoxicated by alcohol; thus half-charged, tipsy.

1922		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 25: He’s agin’ licker ain’t he. Yes he is. He’s been against it for 30 years. He’s half charged right now too.
1944		A. Marshall These Are My People (1957) 145: Whenever I was half-charged, I thought of marrying, but the thought of fourteen kids sobered me up again.
1965		W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 177: At the interval we would go out and buy a hamburger and knock off our other bottle and become half charged again.

2. intoxicated by drugs, esp. cannabis.

1928		C. McKay Home to Harlem 9: I wasn’t mahself. I was like a man charged up with dope every day.
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 35: ‘What have I done? What am I charged with?’ ‘I don’t know what you’re charged with — prob’ly heroin. As for what you’ve done...’.
1938		D. Maurer ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in Lang. Und. (1981) 100/2: charged. Var. of overcharged. Stupefied or drowsy as a result of having taken more narcotics than necessary to produce euphoria. This condition is accidentally produced through failure to judge the quantity or strength of narcotics properly.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 42/1: Charged up. Under the influence of narcotics or alcohol; emotionally disturbed.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 31: Some mugg gets charged up or drunk and behind the wheel of a car, bangs into some guy, then runs off and leaves him dead.
1960		Mad mag. June 48: In like flew this charged-up raven from the old school of two-four.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 177: Charged Stimulated, but not intoxicated, with drink or cannabis.
1980		M. Thelwell Harder They Come 152: ‘Contack,’ Jose said with a grin, seeing that Ican was charged.
1997		C. Newland Scholar 276: The rest of the pipers put up some fight, but most of them were too charged to even move.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 9: [of cocaine] Grafting all week just to get charged up or maybe serving up a few grams to pals to pay for it.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 395: He’s already charged up on cha-cha.

3. emotionally tense, irrespective of the stimulus.

1955		E. Hunter ‘First Offense’ in Jungle Kids (1967) 11: You’re all charged up, ain’t you, Stevie?
1972		E. Grogan Ringolevio 15: Little black girls who were charged up, dressed for the occasion [etc.].
1997		N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 18: Nood’ll be charged up and spreading pressure everywhere.

4. of drugs, adulterated.

1937

D. Fuchs Low Company 272: ‘Lousy charged-up coke,’ he muttered.