souse

• Rhymes: -aʊs

From Middle English souse (“to salt pickle”) also a noun "liquid for pickling" and "pickled pig parts", from Old French sous (“preserved in salt”), from Frankish *sultija (“saltwater, brine”), from Proto-Germanic *sultijō (“saltwater, brine”). Cognate with Old Saxon sultia (“saltwater”), Old High German sulza (“brine”).

souse (plural souses)

1. Something kept or steeped in brine
   1. The pickled ears, feet, etc., of swine.
      • 1848, Thomas Tusser, Some of the Five hundred points of good husbandry, page 58:

        And he that can rear up a pig in his house, / Hath cheaper his bacon, and sweeter his souse.

      1. (US, Appalachia) Pickled scrapple.
      2. (Caribbean) Pickled or boiled ears and feet of a pig
   2. A pickle made with salt.
   3. The ear; especially, a hog's ear.
2. The act of sousing; a plunging into water.
3. A person suffering from alcoholism.

• (person suffering from alcoholism): alcoholic, sot, suck-pint; See also Thesaurus:drunkard

• (food): brawn, budin, haggis, head cheese, pudding, sausage, scrapple

souse (third-person singular simple present souses, present participle sousing, simple past and past participle soused)

1. (transitive) To immerse in liquid; to steep or drench.
   • 1575, George Gascoigne, The introduction to the Psalme of De Profundis‎:

     (Although I bee well soused in this showere,)

   • 1730, Joseph Addison, The Works of the Late Right Honorable Joseph Addison, Esq., volume the fourth, London: Jacob Tonson, OCLC 519569671, page 154:

     As for my ſelf, they uſed to ſowſe me over head and ears in water when I was a boy

   • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 2

     As she heard him sousing heartily in cold water, heard the eager scratch of the steel comb on the side of the bowl, as he wetted his hair, she closed her eyes in disgust.

2. (transitive) To steep in brine; to pickle.

• soused

Obscure origin. Compare Middle German sûs (noise).

souse (plural souses)

1. The act of sousing, or swooping.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Fairie Queene, Book II Canto XI:

     Eft fierce retourning as a foulcon fayre, / That once hath failed of her souse full neare

2. A heavy blow.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Fairie Queene, Book IV Canto VIII

     With that his murdrous mace he vp did reare, / That seemed nought the souse thereof could beare,

souse (third-person singular simple present souses, present participle sousing, simple past and past participle soused)

1. (now dialectal, transitive) to strike, beat
2. (now dialectal, intransitive) to fall heavily
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book III Canto IV:

     Him so transfixed she before her bore / Beyond his croupe, the length of all her launce; / Till, sadly soucing on the sandy shore, / He tombled on an heape, and wallowd in his gore.

   • 1697, Virgil, John Dryden (tr.), The works of Virgil translated into English verse by John Dryden, Æneis, IX:

     Thus on some silver swan or tim'rous hare / Jove's bird comes sowsing down from upper air

3. (obsolete, transitive) to pounce upon
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals):

     , Act V Scene II:

     [The gallant monarch] like an eagle o'er his eyrie towers, / To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.

Borrowed from Old French sous (plural of sout).

souse

1. (obsolete) sou (the French coin)
2. (dated) A small amount

• ouses