Word.ws English Dictionary

souse

/saʊs/

souse noun: the pickled ears, feet, etc., of swine. Also the pronunciation spelling of source.

Noun (1)

souse (plural souses)

  1. The pickled ears, feet, etc., of swine.
    • And he that can rear up a pig in his house, / Hath cheaper his bacon, and sweeter his souse.1848, Thomas Tusser, Some of the Five hundred points of good husbandry, page 58
  2. (Appalachia, US) Pickled scrapple.
  3. (Caribbean) Pickled or boiled ears and feet of a pig
  4. A pickle made with salt.
    Synonyms:
    alcoholic
  5. The ear; especially, a hog's ear.
  6. The act of sousing; a plunging into water.
  7. A drunkard.
    • "If there's any, giving in charge here I'll give you in charge for sneaking my beer, you slop-bellied old souse!" exclaimed Peter.1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 187

Verb (1)

souse (third-person singular simple present souses, present participle sousing, simple past and past participle soused)

  1. (transitive) To immerse in liquid; to steep or drench.
    • (Although I bee well soused in this showere,)1575, George Gascoigne, The introduction to the Psalme of De Profundis
    • For then I viewd his body fall and ſowſe / Into the fomy maine, […]c. 1603 (date written), Iohn Marston, The Malcontent, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for William Aspley, […], published 1604, →OCLC, Act IV, scene iii
  2. (transitive) To steep in brine; to pickle.

Noun (2)

souse (plural souses)

  1. The act of sousing, or swooping.
    • Eft fierce retourning as a foulcon fayre, / That once hath failed of her souse full neare1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  2. A heavy blow.
    • With that his murdrous mace he vp did reare, / That seemed nought the souse thereof could beare,1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Verb (2)

souse (third-person singular simple present souses, present participle sousing, simple past and past participle soused)

  1. (dialectal, transitive) To strike, beat.
  2. (dialectal, intransitive) To fall heavily.
    • Him so transfixed she before her bore / Beyond his croupe, the length of all her launce; / Till, sadly soucing on the sandy shore, / He tombled on an heape, and wallowd in his gore.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
    • Thus on some silver swan or tim'rous hare / Jove's bird comes sowsing down from upper air1697, Virgil, “The Ninth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 484, lines...
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To pounce upon.
    • [The gallant monarch] like an eagle o'er his eyrie towers, / To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

Adverb

souse (not comparable)

  1. (archaic, dialectal) Suddenly, without warning.
    • Mr Nash […] suddenly taking the gentleman by the collar of his coat, and waistband of his breeches, threw him souse over the parapet to the object of his love.1780, Philip Thicknesse, The Valetudinarian's Bath Guide

Noun (3)

souse

  1. (obsolete) A sou (the French coin).
  2. (dated) A small amount.

Also used as

souse is also the pronunciation spelling of source.

Synonyms of souse

Forms of souse

Noun
pluralsouses
Verb
third-person singular presentsouses
present participlesousing
past participlesoused
pastsoused

Origin of souse

From Middle English souse (“to salt pickle”) also a noun (“liquid for pickling,” “pickled pig parts”), from Old French sous (“preserved in salt”), from Frankish *sultija (“saltwater, brine”), from Proto-Germanic *sultijō (“saltwater, brine”). Cognate with Old Saxon sultia (“saltwater”), Old High German sulza (“brine”).

Obscure origin. Compare Middle German sûs (“noise”).

Borrowed from French, from Old French sous (plural of sout), from Latin solidus. Compare solidus (“gold coin of the late Roman empire”).

Words formed from souse

Words that rhyme with souse

10 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about souse

What does souse mean?
Souse means the pickled ears, feet, etc., of swine.
What part of speech is souse?
Souse can be a noun, a verb or an adverb.
How do you pronounce souse?
Souse is pronounced /saʊs/.
What is the plural of souse?
The plural of souse is souses.

Words near souse in the dictionary

  1. sousaphone
  2. sousaphones
  3. sousaphonist
  4. sousaphonists
  5. sousas
  6. souse
  7. soused
  8. sousemeat
  9. sousemeats
  10. souser
  11. sousers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: souse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-souse.wav.

Cite this entry: “souse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/souse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.