boozing ken

• boozing-ken

Alteration of bousing ken.

boozing ken (plural boozing kens)

1. (archaic, British slang) A pub; a public house; a tavern.
   • 1665, Head, Richard, The English Rogue‎, page 54:

     We straight betook our selves to the Boozing Ken; and having bubb'd nimly, we concluded an everlasting friendship.

   • 1834, Ainsworth, William Harrison, Rookwood‎, volume 2, pages 303–304:

     The Ruffler, who found his representative in a very magnificently equipped, and by no means ill-favoured knave, whose chin was decorated with a beard as lengthy and as black as Sultan Mahmood's, together with the dexterous Hooker, issued forth from the hovel which they termed their boozing ken, eager to catch a glimpse of the Prince of the High Toby Gloaks.

• See Thesaurus:pub

• “boozing ken” in Albert Barrère and Charles G[odfrey] Leland, compilers and editors, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, volume I (A–K), Edinburgh: The Ballantyne Press, 1889–1890, page 165.
• Farmer, John Stephen (1890) Slang and Its Analogues‎, volume 1, pages 297–298