1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. xxx. It’s pay-day with the General … and he’s a precious deal more than half-seas over.
1866. G. Eliot, Felix Holt, ch. xxviii. There’s truth in wine, and there may be some in gin and muddy beer.… I’ve got plenty of truth in my time out of men who were half-seas-over, but never any that was worth a sixpence to me.
1890. Globe, 16 Apr., p. 2, c. 1. The familiar phrase half-seas over, for example, is wanting, and for this we appear to be indebted to the Dutch.
1892. The Cosmopolitan, Oct., p. 724. The fellow half-seas-over everyone excuses.
Half-slewed, adj. (common).—Parcel drunk. For synonyms, see Screwed.
Half-snacks (or Half-snags), adv. phr. (colloquial).—Half-shares. See quots.
1683. Earl of Dorset, A Faithful Catalogue. She mounts the price and goes half snack herself.
1887. Walford’s Antiquarian, p. 252. Half-snags is a corrupted form of half snacks, i.e., half shares. If one of a party of arabs finds any article it becomes his entire property unless his fellows say Half-Snags, or ‘Quarter-bits,’ or ‘Some for your neighbours.’
Half-’un, subs. (common).—Half-a-glass of spirits and water; Half-a-Go (q.v.).
Half-widow, subs. (American).—A woman with a lazy and thriftless husband.