1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xiii., p. 104. ‘What do you mean by hocussing brandy and water?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. ‘Puttin’ laund’num in it,’ replied Sam.
1836. Comic Almanack, p. 1. For that we hocuss’d first his drink.
1848. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, II., ch. xxix. Mr. Frederick Pigeon avers that it was at her house at Lausanne that he was hocussed at supper and lost eight hundred pounds to Major Loder and the Honourable Mr. Deucease.
1854. De Quincey, Murder as one of the Fine Arts, Wks., xiii., 119. Him they intended to disable by a trick then newly introduced amongst robbers, and termed hocussing, i.e., clandestinely drugging the liquor of the victim with laudanum.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Hocus … ‘Hocus the bloke’s lush, and then frisk his sacks,’ put something into the fellow’s drink that will stupify him, and then search his pockets.
1859. The Bulletin, 21 May. An offence which goes by the name of hocussing, and which consists of an evil doer furtively introducing laudanum or some other narcotic into beer or spirits, which the victim drinks and, becoming stupified thereby, is then easily robbed.
1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. II., ch. xii. I will not say a hocussed wine, but fur from a wine as was ’elthy for the mind.
Hocus-pocus, subs. (old: now recognised).—1. A juggler’s phrase. Hence a juggler’s (or impostor’s) stock in trade. Also Hocus-trade.
1639–61. Rump Songs. ‘Vanity of Vanities.’ A hocus-pocus, juggling Knight.
1639–61. Rump Songs, ii., 156. ‘The Rump Ululant.’ Religion we made free of hocus trade.