1888. Daily Telegraph, 15 Nov. An impecunious fellow who was always on the mash.
1892. Idler, June, p. 550. I loves to see 'im cuttin' of a dash, A walkin' down our alley on the mash.
Verb. (common).—To court; to ogle; to lay oneself out for the practical approval of the other sex.
1883. Referee, 30 Sept., p. 2, col. 4. And looks so handsome that were he not so wicked he would be likely to mash all the ladies who see him.
1891. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 9 Jan. But only fancy what a fellow with my taste for seeing life and mashing the girls must have suffered!
1892. Illustrated Bits, 22 Oct., p. 4, col. 2. Successfully mash a girl by reciting poetry to her.
Mashed, adj. (common).—Amorous;
spoony (q.v.).
1883. Graphic, 17 March, p. 287, col. 3. There is always a certain amount of flirtation carried on at the half-crown ball. . . . There are nooks and passages which give sufficient cover for the smitten (or the mashed, as, alas! the current slang is) to exchange their confidences, as they flatter themselves unobserved.
Mashed-on, adj. phr. (common).—In love.
1886. Philadelphia Times, 19 Febr. He was mashed on fair Finette.
1892. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, p. 66. Bell Bonsor is mashed on me.
Masher, subs. (common).—1. See
quots. 1883, and—especially—1890.
A species of Don Juan in
a small way of business: specifically
among choristers and actresses.
Hence (2) a dandy.
1883. T. A. Gartham, in Pall Mall Gaz., 11 Oct. The participle mashed was in use, in America, before the substantive. A person who was very 'spooney' on another was said to be mashed. Then came the verb to mash, and latterly the noun masher; i.e. he who produces the effect, or at least who imagines himself a 'lady-killer.' Need I say that men of this calibre are often fops or dandies? Hence, the word masher as now understood here.
1883. Athenæum, 10 Feb., p. 181, col. 1. One poem, indeed, called 'A Cry from the Stalls,' presents our poet in the strange guise of the laureate of the mashers—we apologize humbly for employing a detestable phrase with which America has enriched (?) our vocabulary significatory of the worshippers of actresses.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 10 Oct. The talk around them will fairly match in mental vigour the ejaculations of the gaming table or the race-course, or the prattle of the masher between the acts.
1884. A. Lang, Much Darker Days, p. 24. That mass, once a white hat, had adorned the brows of that masher!
1885. Sporting Times, 23 May, 'The Chorister's Promise.' She sat disconsolate, musing, sad, . . . For times were deucedly awful bad, As mashers were close with what chips they had (And alas for the chips she owed!).
1890. Standard, 11 Febr., p. 3, col. 1. There were specimens of tramps and beggars, of fortune-tellers and hawkers, of village musicians and mashers, called in Vienna 'Gigerls,' which every good painter or sculptor would be delighted to have as models—better specimens of the picturesque, in fact, than can be found in Rome or Naples.
1890. Slang, Jargon, & Cant, s.v. Mash. About the year 1860 mash was a word found only in theatrical parlance in the United States. When an actress smiled at . . . a friend in the audience she was said to mash him. . . . It occurred to the writer [C. G. Leland] that it must have been derived from the gypsy mash (masher-ava) to allure, to entice. . . . Mr. Paluez a well-known impresario said . . . he could confirm [the suggestion] for the term had originated with the C family, who were all actors and actresses, of Romany stock, who spoke gypsy familiarly among themselves.
1895. Sporting Times, 23 Nov. 'Nothing to Do.' There's the masher, the great unemployed of the day.
Adj. (common).—Smart.
1890. Globe, 7 Feb., p. 1, col. 4. What are umbrellas or masher canes to
