morris
To decamp, be off. Probably from the ancient MORESCO, of MORRIS-DANCE. See Shakspeare.
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Expressions you’ll hear in Britain and Ireland — distinctly British usage first, then widespread staples.
mort
A woman or wench; also a yeoman's daughter. To be taken all-a mort; to be confounded, surprised, or motionless through fear.
mortar-board
A square college cap.
mortgage-deed
A pawnbroker’s duplicate.
moses
To stand Moses: a man is said to stand Moses when he has another man's bastard child fathered upon him, and he is obliged by the parish to maintain it.
moskeneer
To pawn with a view to obtaining more than the actual value of an article. There are, in various parts of the country, men who make MOSKENEERING a profession—that is, they buy jewellery which, though fairly good, is not so good as it seems, and pawn it as opportunity occurs.
moss
A cant term for lead, because both are found on the tops of buildings.
mossy face
The mother of all saints.
mot
A girl, or wench. See MORT.
mot
A girl of indifferent character. Formerly, Mort. Dutch, MOTT-KAST, a harlotry. MOT-CART, see LOOSE-BOX.
mother of st
PATRICK. The same. IRISH.
mouchets
Small patches worn by ladies: from the French word mouches.
mouldy
Grey-headed. Servants wearing hair-powder are usually termed MOULDY-PATES by street boys.
mouldy-grubs
Travelling showmen, mountebanks who perform in the open air without tent or covering. Doing this is called MOULDY-GRUBBING.
mount
A saddle-horse. According to quality, "a good MOUNT," or "a bad MOUNT."
mountain-dew
Whisky, advertised as from the Highlands.
mountain-pecker
A sheep’s head. See JEMMY.
mounter
A false swearer. Derived from the borrowed clothes men used to MOUNT, or dress in, when going to swear for a consideration.
mourning
"a full suit of MOURNING," two black eyes; HALF-MOURNING, one black eye.
mouse
To speak like a mouse in a cheese; i.e. faintly or indistinctly.
mouse
A black eye. By a façon de parler, any one with "a MOUSE" is supposed to have been to Blackwall.
mousetrap
The parson's mousetrap; the state of matrimony.
mouth
A noisy fellow. Mouth half cocked; one gaping and staring at every thing he sees. To make any one laugh on the wrong, or t'other side of his mouth; to make him cry or grieve.
mouth-almighty
A noisy, talkative person.
mouthpiece
A lawyer, or counsel. Thieves and their associates always speak of a counsel as a MOUTHPIECE.
move
A "dodge," or cunning trick; "up to a MOVE or two," acquainted with tricks. Probably derived from the game of chess.
moveables
Rings, watches, or any toys of value.
mow heater
A drover: from their frequent sleeping on hay mows. CANT.
mrs. grundy
The representative of the censorious world, "What will MRS. GRUNDY say?" Originally a character in the comedy of Speed the Plough.
mrs. harris
And ~Mrs. Gamp~, nicknames of the Morning Herald and Standard newspapers, while united under the proprietorship of Mr. Baldwin. MRS. GAMP, a monthly nurse, was a character in Charles Dickens’s popular novel of Martin Chuzzlewit, who continually quoted an imaginary MRS.
much of a muchness
Very similar or equivalent in character or quality
muck
To beat, or excel. "It’s no use, his luck’s dead in; he’d MUCK a thousand;" "he MUCKED me clean out," &c. To RUN A MUCK, or GO A MUCKER, to rush headlong into certain ruin. From a certain religious frenzy, or intoxication caused by bhang, which is common among the Malays, and which now and again causes an enthusiast, kreese in hand, to dash into a crowd and devote every one he meets to death until he is himself killed, or falls from exhaustion.—Malay, AMOK, slaughter.
muck-out
To clean out; often applied to one utterly ruining an adversary in gambling.
muck-snipe
One who has been "MUCKED OUT," or beggared, at gambling. See MUCK.
muckender
Or MUCKENGER, a pocket-handkerchief.—Old. Cf. SNOTTINGER. The original name of the "Neckinger" in Bermondsey was "the Devil’s Neck-handkerchief." There is still a Neckinger Road and Messrs. Bevington and Sons’ tannery in Bermondsey bears the name of the Neckinger Mills.
mucker
TO GO A, to go to grief, to ruin one’s prospects.—Oxford Univ.
muckinder
A child's handkerchief tied to the side.
mud
A fool, or thick-sculled fellow; also, among printers the same as dung among journeymen taylors. See DUNG.
mud lark
A fellow who goes about by the water side picking up coals, nails, or other articles in the mud. Also a duck.
mud-crusher
A word of contempt, used by the cavalry in reference to the infantry.
mud-lark
A man or woman who, with clothes tucked above the knee, grovels through the mud on the banks of the Thames, when the tide is low, for silver or pewter spoons, old bottles, pieces of iron, coal, or any articles of the least value, deposited by the retiring tide, either from passing ships or the sewers. Occasionally applied to those men who cleanse the sewers, and who wear great boots and sou’-wester hats.
mud-student
A farming pupil. The name given to the students at the Agricultural College, Cirencester.
mudfog
"The British Association for the Advancement of Science." Term first used by Charles Dickens in Bentley’s Miscellany, about 1836.
muff
The private parts of a woman. To the well wearing of your muff, mort; to the happy consummation of your marriage, girl; a health.
muff
A silly or weak-minded person, a duffer; MUFF has been defined to be "a soft thing that holds a lady’s hand without squeezing it."
muffin baker
A Quaker (slang term for excrement).
muffin-cap
A cap similar to that worn by a charity-boy.
muffin-face
A white, soft, delicate, or whiskerless face.
muffin-worry
An old lady’s tea party.
mufti
The civilian dress of a naval or military officer when off duty.—Anglo-Indian. From an Eastern word signifying a clergyman or priest.
mug
The mouth, or face.—Old.
mug-up
To paint one’s face, or dress specially with a view to impersonation.—Theatrical. To "cram" for an examination.—Army.
mugging
A thrashing,—synonymous with "slogging," both terms of the "ring," and frequently used by fighting men.
muggletonians
The sect or disciples of Lodowick Muggleton.
muggy
Drunk. Also, as applied to weather, stifling, oppressive.
mull
"to make a MULL of it," to spoil anything, or make a fool of oneself.
mulligrubs
Sick of the mulligrubs with eating chopped hay: low-spirited, having an imaginary sickness.
multee kertever
Very bad.
mum
An interjection directing silence. Mum for that; I shall be silent as to that. As mute as Mumchance, who was hanged for saying nothing; a friendly reproach to any one who seems low-spirited and silent.
mum
"to keep MUM," to hold one’s peace. Hence "MUM’S the word,"—a phrase which implies to all hearers that the matter to which it refers must remain secret.
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