1825. Universal Songster, i. 70. She wished to gammon her landlord, and likewise bolt the moon.
1842. Comic Almanack, 18 June. Now prepare for lunar shooting, and hunt out Huntley's vans. Convert your intimate friends after dark into light porters of household furniture.
1885. Sporting Times, 23 May. 'The Chorister's Promise.' The landlady woke next day at noon, And was thinking of getting her rent full soon, When she found that her lodger had shot the moon And gone with the chips she owed.
1891. Morning Advertiser, 27 Mar. It was proved that the goods were removed after eleven o'clock on the nights of the 2nd and 3rd of March—a process described as shooting the moon.
1892. Globe, 2 April, p. 1, c. 5. The moon-shooters sometimes have lodgers in their abodes. Not always do they think it worth while to inform them of their intended journeying, and this may be awkward for the lodger. Ibid. Who shall say that our popular phraseology is not occasionally picturesque when we describe the flight of impecunious tenants as shooting the moon, or 'a midnight flit?'
To cry for the moon, verb. phr. (common).—To crave for the impossible. Fr. Vouloir prendre la lune avec les dents.
To cast beyond the moon, verb. phr. (common).—To make extravagant conjectures.
1606. Wily Beguiled [Orig. Eng. Drama, iii. 329]. Why, master gripe, he casts beyond the moon.
To level at the moon, verb. phr. (common).—To be very ambitious.
To find an elephant in the moon, verb. phr. (old).—To find a mare's nest. [Sir Paul Neal, a seventeenth century virtuoso, gave out that he had discovered an elephant in the moon. It turned out that a mouse had crept into his telescope. See Butler, The Elephant in the Moon].
Moon-calf, subs. (old).—1. A
monster.
1609. Shakspeare, Tempest, ii. 2. How, now, moon-calf? how does thine ague.
1620. Ben Jonson, News from the New World, Print. O, ay, moon-calves! what monster is that, I pray you? 2 Her. Monster! none at all, a very familiar thing, like our fool here on earth.
2. (old).—A false conception.
1598. Florio, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Mola, . . . Also a lump of flesh in women's bellies which they call a tympanie or a moone calfe.
1601. Holland, Pliny, viii. ch. 15. A false conception, called mola, i.e., a moonecalfe.
1611. Cotgrave, Dictionarie. . . . A moonecalfe, a hard swelling or shapelesse peece of flesh in the wombe which makes women beleeve they are with child when they are not.
3. (colloquial).—A blockhead. For synonyms see Buffle and Cabbage-head. Also as adj. mooncalfy.
1693. Dryden, Journal, vi. 798. The sotted moon-calf gapes, and staring on, Sees his own bus'ness by another done.
1858. Dickens, Great Expectations, vii. 29-30. 'And Lor-a-mussy me!' cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in sudden desperation, 'here I stand talking to mere mooncalfs, with Uncle Pumblechook waiting.'
1891. R. L. Stevenson, Kidnapped, p. 44. 'No,' said the poor moon-calf, changing his tune at once.
1892. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, 4. Look at the moon-calfy mash.
Moon-curser, subs. (old).—A link-boy;
a glim-jack. [His services
were not required on moon-light
nights].
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.
c.1750. [quoted in Ashton's Eighteenth Cent. Waifs, 1887, p. 234]. Otherwise call'd Glym Jack from his having been a moon curser, or Link Boy.
