booze

[booz]Informal.

See more synonyms for booze on Thesaurus.com

noun

any alcoholic beverage; whiskey.
a drinking bout or spree.

verb (used without object), boozed, booz·ing.

to drink alcohol, especially to excess: He continued to booze until his health finally gave out.

Idioms

booze it up, to drink heavily and persistently.

Origin of booze

1610–20; respelling of bouse², reflecting one of its pronunciation variants

Related formsbooz·er, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for booze

alcohol, sauce, cocktail, hootch, hooch

Examples from the Web for booze

Contemporary Examples of booze

Cue heartbroken Galavant engorging himself on booze and mutton back home.
‘Galavant’: A Drunken, Horny Musical Fairy Tale
Melissa Leon
January 5, 2015
The Internet is like booze—a little bit gives you a pleasant buzz.
10 Things That Made Us Want to Turn Off the Internet Forever in 2014
The Daily Beast
December 15, 2014
Oregon and Alaska, like Colorado and Washington, will try their hand at regulating weed like booze.
The Real Election Winner: Weed
Abby Haglage
November 5, 2014
The Founders had a sure-fire way to get out the vote: get out the booze.
Founding Fathers Loved Drunk Voters
Kevin Bleyer
November 1, 2014
He has engaged in numerous battles with booze, winning some and losing others.
Football Great Bob Suffridge Wanders Through the End Zone of Life
Paul Hemphill
September 6, 2014

Historical Examples of booze

If health is a desideratum, one way to attain a lot of it is to cut out the booze.
The Old Game
Samuel G. Blythe
The glasses were filled up again as fast as they were emptied, the booze increased.
L'Assommoir
Emile Zola
At eight o'clock that day, he was still lively from the booze of the day before.
L'Assommoir
Emile Zola
A man could fight on booze, he said, but it was a mighty poor foundation for business.
The Duke Of Chimney Butte
G. W. Ogden
Keep them out of the house and away from the women, and let them have their booze down in the grove.
Rim o' the World
B. M. Bower

British Dictionary definitions for booze

booze

noun

alcoholic drink
a drinking bout or party

verb

(usually intr) to drink (alcohol), esp in excess

Derived Formsboozed, adjectiveboozing, noun

Word Origin for booze

C13: from Middle Dutch būsen

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for booze

by 1821, perhaps 1714; probably originally as a verb, "to drink a lot" (1768), variant of Middle English bouse (c.1300), from Middle Dutch busen "to drink heavily," related to Middle High German bus (intransitive) "to swell, inflate," of unknown origin. The noun reinforced by name of Philadelphia distiller E.G. Booze. Johnson's dictionary has rambooze "A drink made of wine, ale, eggs and sugar in winter time; or of wine, milk, sugar and rose-water in the summer time." In New Zealand from c.World War II, a drinking binge was a boozeroo.