souse

• IPA^(key): /saʊs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊs
• Homophone: sowse

From Middle English souse (“to salt pickle”) also a noun (“liquid for pickling,” “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,)

   • c. 1603 (date written), Iohn Marston, The Malcontent, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for William Aspley, […], published 1604, OCLC 1224733829, Act IV, scene iii:

     For then I viewd his body fall and ſowſe / Into the fomy maine, […]

   • 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[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 2, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], OCLC 855945:

     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.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

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

2. A heavy blow.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     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, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     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, “The Ninth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 403869432, lines 761-762, page 484:

     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 […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene ii]:

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

souse (not comparable)

1. (now rare, dialectal) Suddenly, without warning.
   • 1780, Philip Thicknesse, The Valetudinarian's Bath Guide:

     Mr Nash […] suddenly taking the gentleman by the collar of his coat, and waistband of his breeches, threw him souse over the parapet to the object of his love.

Borrowed from French, from Old French sous (plural of sout), from Latin solidus. Compare solidus (“gold coin of the late Roman empire”).

souse

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

• ouses