1838. Dickens, Nich. Nickleby, ch. lx., p. 485. You’re a little fuddled to-night, [[82]]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.