Now dial. Forms: 6 sowse, 6– souse (8 dial. sawse, 9 Sc. soose); 6, 8 souce, 7 sowce. [Related to SOUSE sb.2]
1. To strike, smite, or beat severely or heavily.
15[?]. Parl. Byrdes, 128, in Hazl., E. P. P., III. 173. Than prayed all the common house, That some myght the hauke souse. [Cf. 136 To distroy the Hauke and all his blood.]
1575. Gamm. Gurton, III. iii. 46. Hoyse her, souse her, bounce her, trounce her, pull out her throte-boule.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., IV. iv. 30. So sore he sowst him on the compast creast.
c. 1630[?]. Triplet, in Aubrey, Brief Lives (1898), I. 264. He took up the pillion Of his bouncing maid Jillian, And sowc’t her like a baggage.
1703. Thoresby, Lett., Souse, or Sawse, on the ears, v. to box.
1725. New Cant. Dict., To Souse, to fall upon, to beat cruelly; also to plunder or kill.
a. 1743. J. Relph, Misc. Poems (1747), 4. Up flew her hand to souse the cowren lad.
1787. W. Taylor, Scottish Poems, 112. For soundly did he souse my pate.
1809–. in dial. glossaries, etc.
b. With advs. or preps.: To dash against, knock or cast down, etc., with or by a heavy blow or impact.
a. 1593. Marlowe, trans. 1st Bk. Lucan, 296. Souse downe the wals, and make a passage forth.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 399. The people … always take delight to souce an Englishman’s hat upon his head.
a. 1813. A. Wilson, Foresters, Poet. Wks. (Belfast ed.), 263. Musk-rats and ’possums in each hand he bore;… And as he soused them down with surly gloom [etc.].
1828. Moir, Mansie Wauch, xv. 221. The de’il … soosing her doun frae the lift, she landit in that hole.
† 2. absol. To deliver heavy blows. Obs.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. v. 8. As when a Gryfon … A Dragon fiers encountreth in his flight,… With hideous horrour both together smight, And souce so sore, that they the heauens affray. Ibid. (1596), IV. iii. 25. He stroke, he soust, he foynd, he hewd, he lasht.
3. intr. To fall heavily or with some weight.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., IV. v. 36. About the Andvile standing … With huge great hammers, that did neuer rest From heaping stroakes, which thereon soused sore.
a. 1600. Floddan F., vii. (1664), 72. Them Tennis-balls he sousing sent.
1701. Cibber, Love makes Man, I. i. About eight o’Clock … flap they all sous’d upon their Knees.
1812. W. Tennant, Anster F., IV. xxx. 84. Successively they souse and roll along, Till … the carcase-cumber’d soil Is strewn with havock of the jumping throng.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Gloss., Souse,… to fall with violence.
1858. R. S. Surtees, Ask Mamma, xxix. 116. He drew a duplicate chair to the fire,… and, sousing down in it, prepared for a … chat.
