boose

See also: Boose and bòose

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English bose, boose, from Old English *bōs (attested in bōsih, bōsig (“cow-stall”)), from Proto-Germanic *bansaz, *bandsaz, *bandstiz (“stall”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ- (“to tie, bind”).

Alternative forms

• boosy, boosey

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /buːs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA^(key): /ˈbʉs/
• Rhymes: -uːs

Noun

boose (plural booses)

1. (dialect) A stall for an animal (usually a cow).
   • 1854 July 15, Notes and Queries, number 246, page 50:

     It especially used of the sweepings of cows' booses; and this leads me to remark that it is in the language connected with the farm that some of our good old English monosyllables are to be traced.

Etymology 2

From Middle English bousen (verb) and bouse (noun).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /buːz/
• Rhymes: -uːz

Noun

boose

1. Alternative spelling of booze
   • 1922, A.E Housman, "The Oracles"

     'Tis true there's better boose than brine, but he that drowns must drink it;
     And oh, my lass, the news is news that men have heard before.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 8]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     Sucking duck eggs by God till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is a hairy chap.

Derived terms

• booser

 

Verb

boose (third-person singular simple present booses, present participle boosing, simple past and past participle boosed)

1. Alternative spelling of booze
   • 1828, Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton, Pelham, Or, Adventures of a Gentleman:

     Why, you would not be boosing till lightman's in a square crib like mine, as if you were in a flash panny?

Anagrams

• Booes, OOBEs, oboes