Other forms: sots
A sot is a habitual drunkard. An old sot, a drunken sot, that sot again.
It is archaic and contemptuous, and it names a settled condition rather than one evening's excess. It survives mostly in historical fiction. Note besotted, which comes from it and now means infatuated — the sense travelled from stupefied by drink to stupefied by love.
1nounsotA habitual drunkard.
“The old sot spent every evening propping up the bar.”
sot is a drunkard.
Old English sott means foolish, from Medieval Latin sottus, of unknown origin. Besotted comes from the same word.
Medieval Latin
sottus — foolish
Old English
sot
Middle English
sot
English, today
sot
Built from
From Middle English sot, from Old English sot, sott (“foolish, stupid”), from Medieval Latin sottus (“foolish”), of unknown origin and relation. Possibly an imitative of the sound interjection, similar to French zut (“damn it!”). Compare Middle Low German sot (“insane, foolish, stupid”), Middle Dutch sot "foolish, absurd, stupid"; > modern Dutch zot, French sot (“stupid, foolish, goofy”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA