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 sb. 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 būz, 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, Pacchiar. etc., Epilogue, x. I were found in belief that you quaffed and bowsed [rhyme-wds. caroused, drowsed].
b. To bouse it: in same sense.
1623. Bingham, Xenophon, Lipsius’ Compar. Wars, 10. 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. D. 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. sb. 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.
