Now dial. Forms: 5–7 sowce, 6 souce; 5, 7, 9 sowse, 6– souse, 8 souze (9 dial. zouse, etc.). [Of obscure origin, perh. imitative; cf. MHG. and MLG. sûs (G. saus, Du. gesuis, etc.), noise, din.]
1. A heavy blow; a thump.
1480. Robt. Devyll, 228, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 228. Pryuelye behynde them woulde he steale, And geue them a sowce with hys hande.
1567. Golding, Ovid’s Met., V. (1593), 108. To Petales he lendeth such a souse Full in the noddle of the necke.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., IV. viii. 44. His murdrous mace he vp did reare, That seemed nought the souse thereof could beare.
1638. Heywood, Wise Wom., II. i. Now what did I? but spying the Watch, went and hit the Constable a good sowse on the Eare.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. xxvii. To some with a smart souse on the Epigaster he would make their midriff swag.
1778. Miss Burney, Evelina, xxi. I desire he’ll give you such another souse as he did before.
1809. T. Donaldson, Poems, 13. I’d daud or gie him weel his souses.
1825–. in many dialect glossaries.
1893. Cozens-Hardy, Broad Norf., 5. One boy will give another a clip o’ the head or a sowse o’ the skull.
b. Souse for souse, blow for blow.
1575. Turberv., Faulconrie, 55. The hobby … dares encounter the crowe, and to giue souse for souse and blowe for blowe with him in the ayre.
1581. Rich, Farew. (1846), 208. There was betweene them souse for souse, and boxe for boxe, that it was harde to judge who should have the victorie.
2. A heavy fall. (Cf. SOSS sb.2)
1774. D. Graham, Hist. Rebellion (ed. 3), 70. He first fell on a thatched house, Next on a midden with a souse.
c. 1890. Lyttle, Robin Gordon, 79 (E.D.D.). A wud wauken up wi’ the souse she cum doon on the grun’.
