▪ I. bouse, bowse, v.1
(buːz, baʊz)
Forms: 3, 6– bouse, bowse, 6–7 bowze, 7 bouz(e: see also booze.
[ME. bousen, app. a. MDu. bûsen, early mod.Du. buizen to drink to excess, corresp. to Ger. bausen in same sense. The origin is not quite clear: Kluge takes the Ger. vb. to be derived from baus, MHG. bûs blown-up condition, tumidity; but the Du. seems directly related to buise a large drinking-vessel. Both vb. and n. occur (once) in ME.; but they seem to have become generally known in 16th c. as words of thieves' and beggars' cant, whence they passed into slang and colloquial use. Perh. the use in Falconry came down independently from ME. Most commonly pronounced (buːz), and since 18th c. often phonetically written booze, q.v.]
1. intr. To drink; to drink to excess or for enjoyment or goodfellowship; to swill, guzzle, tipple.
| c 1300 E.E.P. (1862) 154 Hail ye holi monkes..depe cun ye bouse · þat is al ȝure care. 1567 Harman Caveat 32 They bowle and bowse one to another. 1592 Nashe P. Penilesse (ed. 2) 27 a, They lye bowzing and beere-bathing in their houses euery after-noone. 1648 Herrick Hesper. (1869) 211 But before that day comes, Still I be bousing. 1790 Burns Tam O'Shanter 5 While we sit bousing at the nappy. 1839 De Quincey Murder Wks. IV. 22 He..had the honour of bowsing with him in the evening. 1876 Browning Pacchiarotto, Epilogue x, I were found in belief that you quaffed and bowsed (rime-wds. caroused, drowsed). |
b. to bouse it: in same sense.
| 1623 Bingham Comp. Rom. & Mod. Warres, They play the Ruffians, and bouse it out in drinke. 1634 Sir T. Herbert Trav. 156 So soone as the Sun sets, and the kettles beat, then they bowze it lustily. |
2. trans.
| a 1612 Harington Epigr. i. 68 Thou, professed Epicure, That..bowzest Claret wine. 1652 Brome Jov. Crew ii. 388 For all this bene Cribbing and Peck let us then, Bowse a health to the Gentry Cofe of the Ken. 1848 B. Walsh Aristoph. Clouds 312 And the rascally jorum of soup that I've boused. |
† 3. Falconry. Of a hawk: To drink much (trans. and intr.). Cf. bousing vbl. n. 2.
| 1575 Turberv. Falconrie 84 With water before hir to the end she may bathe when she will and bouze as naturally they are enclined to do..for bowzing may oftentimes preserve them from sicknesse. a 1682 Sir T. Browne Misc. Tracts 115 [They gave to hawks] a decoction of Cumfory to bouze. |
▪ II. bouse, bowse, v.2 Chiefly naut.
(baʊs)
Also 8 bowss.
[Of unknown origin: confounded in the dictionaries generally with bouse v.1 = booze: but this rimes with house.]
trans. To haul with tackle. Also absol.
| 1593 Sir. F. Drake Rev. in Arb. Garner V. 497 Felling of great trees; bowsing and hauling them together, with great pulleys and hawsers. 1627 Capt. Smith Seaman's Gram. iii. 36 The Younkers are the young men..for slinging the yards, bousing or trising. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789) To Bowse, to draw on any body with a tackle..This is pronounced bowce. 1816 Scott Antiq. viii, As we used to bouse up the kegs o' gin. 1840 Marryat Poor Jack xiii, We boused out our gun. 1868 Wood Homes without H. xiv. 297 The nautical method of ‘bowsing’ up a rope. |
b. transf.
| 1751 Smollett Per. Pic. xiv. (D.) Pshaw! brother, there's no occasion to bowss out so much unnecessary gum [i.e. palaver]. |
c. to bowse up the jib (fig.): to drink heavily, to make oneself ‘tight’.
| 1837 Marryat Dog Fiend ix. 1840 ― Poor Jack xxii, The captain used to bowse his jib up pretty taut every night. |
▪ III. bouse, bowse, n.1
(buːz, baʊz)
Forms: 4 bous, 6– bouse, bowse, 8 bowze: see also booze.
[Related to bouse v.: also booze, q.v.]
1. colloq. Drink; liquor. (The first quot. may mean a drinking-vessel.) About 1600 a word of vagabonds' cant.
| c 1300 in Wright Lyric P. xxxix, Drynke to hym deorly of fol god bous..When that he is dronke ase a dreynt mous. 1567 Harman Caveat 34 Then doth this vpright man call for a gage of bowse, whiche is a quarte pot of drinke. 1632 Massinger New Way, &c. ii. i, Wellborn. No bouse, nor no tobacco? Tapwell. Not a suck, sir. 1730–6 Bailey, Bowze (with the Vulgar) any Sort of strong Liquor. |
2. A drinking-bout, a carouse.
| 1786 Burns To J. Kennedy ii, An' if we dinna hae a bouze, I'se ne'er drink mair. 1812 W. Tennant Anster F. v. liii, With riot and with bouse. 1857 S. Osborn Quedah iv. 53 All hands had had what they graphically termed ‘a bowse⁓out’. 1858 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. (1865) I. iii. ix. 192 A good bouse of liquor now and then. |
▪ IV. bouse, n.2
(baʊs, buːs)
Also 7 bous.
(See quots.)
| 1653 E. Manlove Lead-mines 266 Fell, Bous, and Knockbarke, Forstid-oar and Tees. 1851 Tapping Gloss. Derby Leadmining (E.D.S.), Boose, bouse, fell, bouse ore, lead ore in its rough state, or in other words the contents of a metalliferous vein, before the baser minerals are separated. 1866 North Country, Durham &c., Bouse, lead ore when picked out from the refuse rock. |
▪ V. bouse, bousie
var. boose, boosy, cattle-stall.