stocious

English

Alternative forms

• stotious, stoshious

Etymology

Uncertain. The ending -ious or -tious appears to be a mock-Latinate jocular formation. Suggestions for the initial sto- or stot- include:

• Arbitrary
• From an unidentified Irish word
  • David Crystal doubtfully suggests Irish stuagach "pitcher" or Irish stab "stoup".
• Jonathon Green suggests Scots stot "totter"
• Tony Thorne suggests "a dialect word meaning waterlogged or muddy" (?stodge)

Green distinguishes this word from stocious, Caribbean slang for "stylish; good-looking; arrogant", a corruption of ostentatious.

Adjective

stocious (comparative more stocious, superlative most stocious)

1. (Ireland, slang) very drunk, intoxicated
   • 1949, Charles Graves, Ireland Revisited, page 20:

     By contrast they have a whole flock of words to discriminate the various degrees of intoxication. Beginning with the delightful “Drink-taken,” you have half-towed, sizzled, flukaw, flutered, spifflu, langers, and stocious. The last word rhymes with atrocious and means thickly speaking drunk. Anybody who is stocious ought to be taken home before he starts fighting—unless he is already past it, which he probably is.

   • 2003 January 24, Eithne Donnellan, “A&E doctors to be asked about young drinkers in hospitals”, in The Irish Times:

     Asked by the committee chairman, Mr Batt O'Keeffe, why young people were going out at night "to get absolutely stocious drunk", he suggested young people were influenced by what they saw around them, including the excesses of adults.