cut = drunk

[George Thompson]

I perhaps ought not to flaunt this one before the membership, since it
isn't close to being an antedating, but in a way it is, since HDAS's
citations were not caught in the wild.

HDAS has cut = drunk from dictionaries: 1650 from Partridge's DSUE;
1698-9 from (I must admit) a genuine 17th C. dictionary, B. E.'s Dict
of the Canting Crew; 1722, from Ben Franklin, but as quoted in Amer
Speech; and 1748, from Farmer & Henley); then 1813-18 & 1821, from U.
S. sources.

***  On enquiry, I found these amateurs were assembled to see a Boxing-
Match, between a Mr. Crosby and a Scotch baker.  ***  After waiting a
considerable time to see the anticipated spectacle, the Scotch baker
disappointed us.  Crosby went away in triumph, half cut.  ***  Daily
Advertiser, October 5, 1802, p. 3, col. 2

Go ahead and delete it, if you find it unworthy.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.