wooze
verbEtymology From Middle English wosen, from Old English wōsan, variant of wēsan. Doublet of ooze.
7 senses
1
To soak hides in wooze.
- As to what we called crop leather, when the hides are woozed enough for laying away I have a very strong wooze drawn from them.1856, English Patents of Inventions:
2
To cause to feel woozy.
- Sebastian is too woozed by alcoholism to make any formal contribution to politics, but he makes a special trip to Germany to convince a German friend to abandon Naziism.1982, Evelyn Waugh Newsletter - Volumes 16-24, page 22:
- I am woozed out with a sedative, wheeled into the operating room, ...1995, Anne Taylor Fleming, Motherhood Deferred: A Woman's Journey, →ISBN, page 97:
3
To become woozy or sleepy.
- My head was feeling strange, woozing in and woozing out.2006, Janet Taylor Lisle, Black duck, →ISBN, page 191:
- As I woozed, he gut-punched me.2010, Richard Marcinko, Designation Gold Rogue Warrior, →ISBN, page 241:
2 more examples
- Knights, knights—you'll scare yourself sleepless with such! no knights there are anymore—just wicked little winglings who will not wooze when they should.2014, Tad Williams, The Very Best of Tad Williams, →ISBN, page 237:
- Those expert administrations as she woozed in his overgrown grass were hazy, but she did remember the black T-shirt bunched under her head, its distinctive must, and the vivid, bumpy journey to the clinic.2018, Lionel Shriver, The Self-Seeding Sycamore:
4
To move or function while in a daze.
- Dismissing Zing's desertion, Sheri pitched in so intensively that she barely woozed through the final afternoon, like a setting hen on H-day, feeling life stir in the eggs.1964, P. S. Barrows, More about Scheherazade, page 194:
- Stoned, we woozed through monster traffic jams, wisecracking in Vietnamese to the Vietnamese, then stopped at the bars along Tu Do Street, where none of us could afford the drinks and we were cold- shouldered by the bar girls and bawled out.1991, John Balaban, Remembering heaven's face: a moral witness in Vietnam, page 178:
1 more example
- Daylong you swayed and woozed, sunstruck atop a camel's hump, halfway gaga, your sand-coated tongue a breaded cutlet.2002, Roger Fanning, Homesick, →ISBN, page 10:
5
To speak while intoxicated; to say in a slurred voice.
- "Click Dark," woozed Amber, "nice to meet ya."1998, John Kane, Best Actress, →ISBN, page 122:
- Now — her voice woozed from the speaker—"The little money I accumulate comes from old residuals, poetry, and favors to men . . . I love the Negro race and I will accept money only from Negroes.”1999, Luc Sante, Melissa Holbrook Pierson, O.K. You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors, page 30:
1 more example
- 'I love yoooo,' she woozed in English, as Sergei, with a static grin, refilled my glass.2000, Marc Llewellyn, Riders to the Midnight Sun: From the Black Sea to the Russian Arctic:
6
To gradually go in and out of mental focus.
- This was woozing through my mind and the voices spoke again.1971, Edith M. Osborn, Short Visit to Ergon, page 7:
- This old song from Simon and Garfunkel woozes its way up and I'm hearing the lyric, 'Time it was, and what a time it was: a time of innocence, a time of confidences'.2006, John Earp, Sweet Heavenly Daze: A Memoir of the Afterlife, →ISBN, page 1:
7
To move sinuously.
- He had floated up from the bottom and he grinned at us horribly from his bullet-shattered skull as he slowly woozed away from us downstream leaving a wake of stinking bubbles behind him.1927, The Military Surgeon, page 142:
- Albert P. Rockwood described these springs: 'The spring was a muddy, sulfry, cold and black nasty water that woozed through the mire and formed...1997, David Romney Crockett, Saints find the place: a day-by-day pioneer experience, page 309:
1 more example
- Nerone was attacked from both sides and Treno woozed around on his knees, all while Fabbrizio sat watching.2008, John Domini, A Tomb on the Periphery, →ISBN, page 186: