1864. Glasgow Citizen, 9 Dec. Turner is given to a fuddle at times.
Verb. (colloquial).—To be drunk.
1720. Durfey, Pills, etc., vi., 265. All day he will fuddle.
1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2nd ed.). To fuddle. 1. To make a
person drunk. 2. To grow drunk.
1770. Foote. Lame Lover, iii. Come, Hob or Nob, Master Circuit—let
us try if we can’t fuddle the serjeant.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. x. He boxed the watch; he fuddled
himself at taverns; he was no better than a Mohock.
1889. Echo, 15 Feb. If rich, you may fuddle with Bacchus all night,
And be borne to your chamber remarkably tight.
Fuddlecap (or Fuddler), subs. (common).—A drunkard; a boon companion.
For synonyms, see Lushington.
1607. Dekker, Jests to make you Merie, in wks. (Grosart) ii., 299.
And your perfect fuddlecap [is known] by his red nose.
d. 1682. T. Browne, Works, iii., 93. True Protestant fuddlecaps.
1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew, fuddlecap, a drunkard.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.) Fuddlecap (S.) one that loves
tippling, an excessive drinker, or drunkard.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
Fuddled, adj. (colloquial).—Stupid with drink. For synonyms, see Drinks
and Screwed.
1661. Pepys, Diary, 8 March After dinner, to drink all the
afternoon ... at last come in Sir William Wale, almost fuddled.
1713. Guardian, No. 145. It was my misfortune to call in at Tom’s
last night, a little fuddled.
1730. Thomson, Autumn, 537. The table floating round, And pavement
faithless to the fuddled foot.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nickleby, ch. lx., p. 485. You’re a little
fuddled to-night, and may not be able to see this as clearly as you
would at another time.
1841. Punch, I., p. 74. The Sultan got very fuddled last night with
forbidden juice in the harem, and tumbled down the ivory steps.
1864. Glasgow Citizen, 19 Nov. No other word has so many
equivalents as ‘drunk.’... One very common and old one has escaped
Mr. Hotten—fuddled.
1888. Daily News, 28 Nov. Music halls would soon decrease in
numbers if drink were not sold in them, for sober people would not
go to see spectacles only attractive to those who were half
fuddled.
Fudge, subs. (colloquial).—Nonsense; humbug; an exaggeration; a
falsehood. [Provincial French, fuche, feuche; an exclamation of
contempt from Low Ger. futsch = begone; see, however, quots. 1700 and
1712.] Also as an exclamation of contempt.
1700. Isaac Disraeli, Notes on the Navy. There was, in our time,
one Captain Fudge, a commander of a merchant-man; who, upon his
return from a voyage, always brought home a good cargo of lies;
insomuch that now, aboard ship, the sailors, when they hear a great
lie, cry out fudge.
1712. W. Crouch, A Collection of Papers. In the year 1664 we were
sentenced for banishment to Jamaica by Judges Hyde and Twisden, and
our number was 55. We were put on board the ship Black Eagle; the
master’s name was Fudge, by some called Lying Fudge.
1766. Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield, ch. xi. Who ... would cry out
fudge! an expression which displeased us all, and, in some measure,
damped the rising spirit of the conversation.
1841. Lytton, Night and Morning, Bk. II., ch. vii. Very genteel
young man—prepossessing appearance—(that’s a fudge!)—highly
educated; usher in a school—eh?
1850. Thackeray, Rebecca and Rowena, ch. i. Her ladyship’s
proposition was what is called bosh ... or fudge in plain Saxon.
1861. Cornhill Magazine, iv., 102. ‘A Cumberland Mare’s Nest.’ ...
Up jumped the worthy magistrate, And seizing ‘Burn,’ Of justices
the oracle and badge, he straight Descended to his ‘lion’s den’ (a
sobriquet in fudge meant) Where he, ‘a second Daniel,’ had often
‘come to judgment.’
1864. Tangled Talk, p. 108. It is fudge to tell a child to ‘love’
every living creature—a tapeworm, for instance, such as is bottled
up in chemists windows.
1865. Morning Star, 1 June. Old as I am and half woor out, I would
lay (too bad, Mr. Henley, this) upon my back and hallo fudge!
1882. Daily Telegraph, 5 Oct., p. 2, col. 2. Much that we hear
concerning the ways and means of the working classes is sheer
fudge.
Verb. (colloquial).—1. To fabricate; to interpolate; to contrive
without proper materials.
1776. Foote, The Bankrupt, iii., 2. That last ‘suppose’ is fudged
in.
1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, ch. xviii. By the time that he did
know something about navigation, he discovered that his antagonist
knew nothing. Before they arrived at Malta, Jack could fudge a
day’s work.
1858. Shirley Brooks, Gordian Knot. Robert Spencer was hiding from
his creditors, or fudging medical certificates.
1859. G. A. Sala, in John Bull, 21 May. I had provided myself with
a good library of books of Russian travel, and so fudged my Journey
Due North.