slang. Also locust. [As the earliest use is West Indian, the source may be Sp. loco lunatic (pl. locos): cf. LOCO1.] Something stupefying. Also attrib. in locus-ale, an intoxicating drink made of the scum of the sugar cane.
1693. Sir T. P. Blount, Nat. Hist., 146. The first of which [viz. scum of sugar-cane] that ariseth is little worth; but afterwards, what is scumm’d off, they make a very good drink of, called Locus-Ale, much used by the Servants in Jamaica.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, III. 387. Some of the convicts would have given me some lush with a locust in it (laudanum hocussing).
