What does bowsing mean?
Bowsing means drinking alcohol heavily or going on a drinking spree. It is an old-fashioned word, now largely confined to dialect, historical writing, and dictionaries, but it once circulated widely in the slang of sailors and laborers. A heavy drinker might be described as bowsing his fill after payday, and a tavern frequented for that purpose could be called a bowsing ken, using the period slang 'ken' for a house or dwelling. The word belongs to the same family as 'booze,' which began life as a verb meaning much the same thing before settling into its modern role as a noun for liquor itself. Because bowsing has dropped out of everyday speech, encountering it today usually signals a text set in the past or one deliberately reaching for colorful, period flavor. Its single vowel change from 'browsing' also makes it a tempting misreading, so context matters when the word appears.
To drink alcohol heavily or habitually; to engage in a drunken spree.
"Liberty ashore meant nothing to him but bowsing in the dockside taverns."
Chiefly archaic or dialectal; associated with sailors' slang.
A bout of heavy drinking; a carouse.
"The pay day bowsing lasted until well past dawn."
Rare; used mostly in older slang contexts.
Very rare; the noun sense is uncommon enough that a plural form is seldom needed.
"The memoir recounts the captain's youthful bowsings in Portsmouth."
Before 'booze' became the everyday word for alcohol, English speakers said 'bouse' — and a tavern where sailors drank was called a 'bowsing ken.'
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bowsing
Bowsing derives from the verb 'bouse' (also spelled bowse), meaning to drink deeply, which entered English in the sixteenth century, likely from Middle Dutch 'buizen,' meaning to drink hard. The same source gave rise to 'booze,' making them true siblings rather than variants. The spelling with 'w' reflects a common English convention of marking the /aʊ/ diphthong. The word flourished in nautical and cant slang — hence 'bowsing ken' for a drinking den — before fading from general use.
How bowsing is actually used
Archaic, dialectal, and strongly associated with nautical and working-class slang of earlier centuries; it sounds quaint or comic in modern use and would rarely appear outside historical fiction or dictionaries.
Easily confused with bowsing
Browsing means casually looking through things, while bowsing means drinking heavily — the words differ only by one letter but are unrelated in meaning.