bouse
to drink, especially alcoholic drink
Noun
- to drink, especially alcoholic drink
- Bien Darkmans then, Bouse Mort and Ken - 1665, Richard Head, The English Rogue, page 46:
- a carouse; a booze
- Six-and-twenty years of prison; the first seventeen years of it strict and hard, almost of the dungeon sort; the remainder, on his fairly abdicating, was in another Castle, that of Callundborg in the Island of Zealand,...
Origin
From Middle English bous (noun), bousen (verb), from Middle Dutch būsen, buisen, buysen (“to drink heavily”). Related to Middle High German būsen (“to swell, inblow”). More at beer.
Forms
Verb nautical, transport
- To haul or hoist (something) with a tackle.
Origin
Of unknown origin.
Forms
Verb obsolete
- To drink immoderately; to carouse; to booze.
- you do provide me hum enough , And lour to bouse with - c. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger [et al.?], “Beggars Bush”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley...