Bowsie
A rough or unruly man, often drunk, usually a bit of a layabout. Pejorative but stops short of outright insult: a bowsie is a known type rather than a hated individual. Most often heard in working-class Dublin speech.
Etymology
From the older English adjective 'bowsy' meaning drunk (an obsolete spelling of 'boozy', documented in Dryden's Juvenal translation 1693). The Hiberno-English noun developed from the adjective: the bowsy person became a bowsy, and the modern Irish spelling settled on 'bowsie' through the twentieth century. Joyce used the form 'bowsy' in Ulysses (1922) - 'poxy bowsy' - capturing the sense already in Dublin currency.
In a sentence
"He's a fierce bowsie - never up before noon, never sober after dark."
Historical notes
Bowsie occupies a particular niche in the Dublin character vocabulary. It implies the kind of layabout who is recognised at the bar by name, harmless rather than dangerous, the subject of long-running family complaint rather than active outrage. The word's distance from 'gouger' or 'ruffian' is in this softer register: a bowsie has known him for years, and would let him sleep on the sofa once the shouting was done.
Alternate spellings
bowsy
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry bowsy / bowsie n. · dictionary
- Joyce, James. Ulysses (1922). · academic
- Partridge, Eric. Dictionary of the Underworld (1961). · dictionary