or sossle, soss, sozz, subs. (colloquial).—Generic for lumpishness. Thus (1) = a lout: also SOSS-BELLY; (2) a heavy fall; a FLOP DOWN; (3) a muddle; a mess. As verb. = (1) to flop; (2) to toss at random; and (3) to slush about. As adj. (or SOSS-BELLIED) = ponderously fat; SOSS-BRANGLE = (1) a slattern, and (2) a big horse-godmotherly whore; SOSSLY (or SOZZLY) = wet, sloppy: SOSSLED = drunk.
1549. BALE, A Declaration of Edmonde Bonners Articles, 29. Thou SOS-BELY swil-bol.
1557. TUSSER, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, April, 48, 20. Her milke pan and creame pot, so slabbered and SOST.
1566. STILL, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, v. 4 [DODSLEY, Old Plays (HAZLITT), iii. 183].
| To dig and delve, in water, mire, and clay, | |
| SOSSING and possing in the dirt. |
1611. COTGRAVE, Dictionarie, s.v. A great, unweldie, long, mishapen, ill-favoured, or ill-fashioned man or woman; a luske, a slouche; a SOSSE.
1710–11. SWIFT, The Journal to Stella, 19 March, xviii. I went to-day into the city, but in a coach, and SOSSED up my leg on the seat. Ibid. (1723), Stella at Wood Park. SOSSING in an easy-chair.
1767. STERNE, Tristram Shandy, III. xxiv. She fell backward SOSS against the bridge.
1870. JUDD, Margaret, 8. She sat down and SOZZLED her feet in the foam.
1873. A. D. T. WHITNEY, The Other Girls, xiii. Folks … grow helplesser all the time, and the help grows SOZZLIER. Ibid., A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite’s Life, xii. The woman … had always hated … anything like what she called a ‘SOZZLE,’—who had always screwed-up and sharp-set to hard work.
1897. MARSHALL, Pomes, 75. She was thick in the clear, Fairly SOSSELLED on heer.
