subs. (colloquial).—1. Sleep: spec. a NAP (q.v.): also SNOOZEM; also (2) = a bed: see KIP. As verb. (or SNOOZLE) = to nestle; SNOOZER = (1) a sleepy-head, and (2) a domiciled boarding-house or hotel thief (American); SNOOZING = sleep; SNOOZE-KEN (or SNOOZING-KEN) = (1) a bed, (2) a bed-room, (3) a lodging-house, (4) a brothel; SNOOZE-CASE = a pillow-slip (GROSE, BEE, VAUX). SNOOZY (old cant) = a night watchman or constable (GROSE).
1819. T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress. What with SNOOZING, high grubbing, and guzzling like Cloe.
1838. WILLIAM WATTS (‘Lucian Redivivus’), Paradise Lost, 39.
| For when Jehovah went to SNOOZEM, | |
| Their din incessant sure must rouse him. |
1847. E. BRONTË, Wuthering Heights, iii. A dog, now and then, that SNOOZLED its nose over forwardly into her face.
1855. THACKERAY, The Newcomes, xlix. SNOOZE gently in thy arm-chair, thou easy bald-head!
1862. C. F. BROWNE (‘Artemus Ward’), Artemus Ward: His Book [Works (1899), 41]. I spose I’d been SNOOZIN half an hour when I was woke up by a noise at the door.
1874. BEETON, The Siliad, 61. Kamdux had SNOOZED, but now his fat sides shook.
1883. R. L. STEVENSON, The Treasure of Franchard, v. The same SNOOZING, countrified existence.
1880. BRET HARTE, A Lonely Ride. Bully place for a nice quiet SNOOZE,—empty stage, sir!
1890. W. BEATTY-KINGSTON, A Journalist’s Jottings, I., ‘Cruel Science.’ The last surreptitious SNOOZE in which he was wont to revel ere scientific appliances were trained to work him woe, will be rendered impossible.
