bouse

See also: Bouse and boûse

English

Etymology 1

Of unknown origin.

Alternative forms

• bowse

Verb

bouse (third-person singular simple present bouses, present participle bousing, simple past and past participle boused)

1. (nautical) To haul or hoist (something) with a tackle.

Etymology 2

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.

Noun

bouse (countable and uncountable, plural bouses)

1. (obsolete) drink, especially alcoholic drink
   • 1665, Richard Head, The English Rogue‎^[1], page 46:

     Bien Darkmans then, Bouse Mort and Ken

2. (obsolete) a carouse; a booze
   • 1858, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia‎^[2], volume 1, Chapman and Hall, published 1873, page 192:

     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, 'with fine apartments and conveniences,' and even 'a good bouse of liquor now and then,' at discretion of the old soul.

Verb

bouse (third-person singular simple present bouses, present participle bousing, simple past and past participle boused)

1. (obsolete) To drink immoderately; to carouse; to booze.
   • c. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger [et al.?], “Beggars Bvsh”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     you do provide me hum enough , And lour to bouse with

Derived terms

• bousy

Anagrams

• Bueso

French

Etymology

From Gaulish or Ancient Ligurian. Cognate with Piedmontese busa, Ligurian bêusa, bûsa, bûsia and Occitan bosa, bosia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /buz/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

bouse f (plural bouses)

1. cowpat
2. (heraldry) water-bouget

Derived terms

• bouseux

Further reading

• “bouse”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.