quisby

quisby

English

Etymology

Uncertain; perhaps quiz +‎ -by, or from queer or Queer Street (“difficult circumstances”).

Noun

quisby (plural quisbies)

1. (slang, obsolete) A wretch; an idle person. [18th–19th c.]

Adjective

quisby (comparative more quisby, superlative most quisby)

1. (UK, slang, archaic) Mean; destitute; strange. [from 19th c.]
2. (UK, slang, archaic) In difficult circumstances; in trouble.
   • 1874, Arthur Sketchley, Mrs. Brown and Disraeli (page 151)

     [S]he told me as things was a-goin' werry quisby with 'em Wilkses. I says, "I'm sorry for 'er, but he's a party I don't 'old with, as in my opinion deserves to want, only but for others as would want with 'im."
     She says, "He's been and got 'isself in a 'ole with them books as he've been lewanted with, and will get two years over it, they say," and so he did, […]

3. (UK, slang, archaic) Drunk; tipsy.
   • 1889, Belgravia (volume 70, page 15)

     " […] Did you know that my husband came home intoxicated?"
     Mrs. Brown laughed.
     "Oh, not so bad as that, surely! Only a little 'screwed.' George was 'quisby,' too. But then its Christmas, you know."

References

• “quisby, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022.
• “quisby, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020.
• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary