slang. [Of obscure origin: perh. suggested by LUSH a.]
1. Liquor, drink.
1790. Potter, Dict. Cant. (1795), Lush, drink.
1796. Grose’s Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Lush, strong beer.
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Lush, beer or liquor of any kind.
1829. Lytton, Disowned, 5. I’ll find the lush.
1840. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 189. Cheering the workmen with good words and ‘lush.’
1872. Mrs. Lynn Linton, Joshua Davidson, viii. 159–60. ‘It’s no use, governor,’ he said to Joshua, in his drunken way; ‘work and no lush too hard for me, governor!’
b. A drinking bout.
1841. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 214. We ended the day with a lush at Véry’s.
1896. A. D. Coleridge, Eton in Forties, 363. On very special occasions … there would be a ‘lush,’ when every mess brewed its punch, or egg-flip.
2. Comb.: lush-crib, -ken, = lushing-ken (see LUSHING vbl. sb.).
1790. Potter, Dict. Cant. (1795), Lush ken, an alehouse.
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Lush-crib or Lush-ken, a public-house, or gin-shop.
1823. Blackw. Mag., XIII. 457. On leaving the lush-crib, we can figure them giving fippence to the drawer.
