"inebriated, drunken, sottish," 1719 (earlier bousy, in canting slang, 1520s), from booze (n.) + -y (2). It was one of Benjamin Franklin's 225 synonyms for "drunk" published in 1722. Related: Boozily; booziness.
Entries linking to boozy
booze n.
"alcoholic drink," by 1570s, also bouze (in poetry rhyming with carouse), also as a verb, probably a variant of Middle English bous "intoxicating drink," (mid-14c.), which is from Middle Dutch buse "drinking vessel" (also as a verb, busen "to drink heavily"), which is related to Middle High German bus (intransitive) "to swell, inflate," which is of unknown origin.
Mostly a cant word in late 18c. The noun use and the -z- spelling (1830s) might have been popularized partly by the coincidental name of mid-19c. Philadelphia distiller E.G. Booz. Johnson's dictionary has rambooze "A drink made of wine, ale, eggs and sugar in winter time; or of wine, milk, sugar and rose-water in the summer time." In New Zealand from c. World War II, a drinking binge was a boozeroo.
-y 2
adjective suffix, "full of or characterized by," from Old English -ig, from Proto-Germanic *-iga- (source also of Dutch, Danish, German -ig, Gothic -egs), from PIE -(i)ko-, adjectival suffix, cognate with elements in Greek -ikos, Latin -icus (see -ic). Originally added to nouns in Old English; used from 13c. with verbs, and by 15c. even with other adjectives (for example crispy). Adjectives such as hugy, vasty are artificial words that exist for the sake of poetical metrics.
woozy adj.
"muddled or dazed, as with drink," 1897, American English colloquial, variant of oozy "muddy," or an alteration of boozy. It is recorded in 1896 as student slang, but with a sense "foolish, behind the times," also "pleasant, delightful."