1602. Shakspeare, Troilus and Cressida, i. 2. Then she's a merry Greek indeed.
1647. Beaumont and Fletcher, Woman's Prize, ii. 2. Go home, and tell the merry Greeks that sent you, Ilium shall burn, etc.
d. 1669. Prynne, Healthes Sicknesse, fol. B 2, b. Open, liberall, or free housekeepers, merry Greeks, and such like stiles and titles.
1820. Barn. Journ., i. p. 54. A true Trojan, and a mad merry grig, though no Greek.
Merryman. See Merry-andrew.
Merry-men-of-May, subs. (nautical).—Currents
formed by the ebb-tides.
Merry-pin, subs. (old).—A happy
chance; a jolly time; a gay
mood. In a merry pin =
jovially inclined. [See quot. 1655].
1560. Nice Wanton [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), ii. 166]. I will set my heart On a merry-pin, Whatever shall befall.
1655. Fuller, Church History, iii. 17. The Dutch, and English in imitation of them, were wont to drink out of a cup marked with certain pins, and he accounted the man who could nick the pin; whereas, to go above or beneath it, was a forfeiture.
1670. Ray, Proverbs [Bohn (1893), 174]. To be in a merry-pin.
1715. Pennecuik, Poems (1815), 332. Finding the brethren in a merry pin.
1719. Durfey, Pills etc., i. . . . Well, since you're on the merry pin And make so slight the counter-gin, I'll do't.
d. 1774. Fergusson, Poems (1851), 'A Drink Eclogue,' 114. And set the saul upon a merry pin.
Merry thought, subs. (colloquial).—The
furcula or forked bone of a
fowl's breast.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Catriosso, the bone called the merie thought.
1694. Echard, Plautus [Ency. Dict.]. 'Let him not be breaking merry-thoughts under the table with my cousin.'
d. 1719. Addison, Omens [Century]. I . . . have seen a man in love grow pale, and lose his appetite upon the plucking of a merry thought.
Mesopotamia, subs. (obsolete).—1.
Belgravia; Cubitopolis (q.v.). Cf.
Asia Minor, New Jerusalem
etc.
1864. E. Yates, Broken to Harness, xv. p. 143 (1873). A house in Great Adullam Street, Macpelah Square, in that district of London whilom known as Mesopotamia.
2. (Oxford University).—See quot.
1886. Pall Mall Gazette, 23 June, p. 13. Every Oxford man has known and loved the beauties of the walk called Mesopotamia
The true Mesopotamia ring, phr. (common).—High-sounding and pleasing, but wholly past comprehension. [In allusion to the story of the old woman who told her pastor that she found great support in that blessed word Mesopotamia].
Mess, subs. (colloquial).—1. A difficulty;
a fiasco; a muddle. To make
a mess of it = to fail utterly or
permanently.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. etc., ii. 193. They make it a rule when they receive neither beer nor money from a house to make as great a mess as possible the next time they come.
1880. Life in a Debtor's Prison, 77. Contemptuous pity due to a poor devil who has made a mess of it.
c. 1884. J. W. Palmer, After His Kind, p. 91. What a mess they made of it!
2. (Winchester College).—See quot.
