Reference > Brewer’s Dictionary > Half-seas Over.

 Half-faced Groat (You).Halfpenny. 
CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
 
Half-seas Over.
 
Almost up with one. Now applied to a person almost dead drunk. The phrase seems to be a corruption of the Dutch op-zee zober, “over-sea beer,” a strong, heady beverage introduced into Holland from England (Gifford). “Up-zee Freese” is Friezeland beer. The Dutch, half seeunst’s over, more than half-sick. (C. K. Steerman.)   1
       
“I am half-seas o’er to death.”
       
Dryden.
       
“I do not like the dulness of your eye,
It hath a heavy cast, ’tis upsee Dutch.”
       
Ben Jonson: Alchemist, iv. 2.
 


 Half-faced Groat (You).Halfpenny. 

 
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