Feb 7, 2013
Paul Jacob Marperger defines "Sauffen"
“Sauffen: heist im Uberfluß das Getränck in sich schütten, und zwar so lang und viel, bis der Magen solches nicht mehr ertragen kann.”
Sauffen means to pour drinks into oneself to excess, and in fact so long and so much that the stomach can no longer handle it.
Paul Jacob Marperger, Kuch- und Keller-Dictionarium … Hamburg: Benjamin Schillers, 1716. Marperger's original spelling. English translation mine.
For more on getting shit-faced in the 17th and 18th centuries, see my earlier, slightly off-kilter and not-at-all-scholarly discussion of Adelung, Harsdörffer and the like, here.