▪ I. bosky, a.1
(ˈbɒskɪ)
[f. bosk (not recorded between 14th and 19th c., but preserved in dial.) + -y; or alteration of busky, after It. boscoso.]
Consisting of or covered with bushes or underwood; full of thickets, bushy. (Also transf.)
| 1593 Peele Chron. Edw. I (1874) 407 In this bosky wood Bury his corpse. 1610 Shakes. Temp. iv. i. 81 My boskie acres, and my vnshrubd downe. 1634 Milton Comus 312 And every bosky bourn. 1757 Dyer Fleece (1807) 79 The bosky bourns of Alfred's shires. 1810 Scott Lady of L. iii. xiv, The bosky thickets. 1851 H. Melville v. 33 A brown and brawny company with bosky beards. |
▪ II. bosky, a.2 dial. or slang.
(ˈbɒskɪ)
[perh. a humorous use of prec., with the notion of ‘overshadowed’ or ‘obscured’.]
Somewhat the worse for drink, tipsy.
| 1730–6 Bailey, Bosky, half or quite fuddled. 1824 Blackw. Mag. XVI. 573 He may be tipsy, bosky, cut, or anything but drunk. 1843 T. Hook in New Month. Mag. LX. 11 Became, to use a colloquial expression, uncommonly bosky. |