In the mops, adv. phr. (common).—Sulky.
Mope, subs. (colloquial).—1. A dullard. For synonyms see Buffle and Cabbage-head.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., 149. 'They will be scoffing, insulting over their inferiours, till they have made by their humoring or gulling, ex stulto insanum: a mope, or a noddy.'
1726. Pope, Dunciad, ii. No meagre, Muse-rid mope, adust and thin, In a dun night-gown of his own loose skin.
1861. Dickens, Tom Tiddler's Ground [Mr. Mopes, a hermit].
2. in pl. (colloquial).—Low spirits; the hump (q.v.); the blues (q.v.).
Verb. (colloquial).—To despond.
1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, iii. 4. 81. Or but a sickly part of one true sense. Could not so mope.
1635. Quarles, Emblems, i. 8. One's mop'd, the other's mad.
1667. Milton, Paradise Lost, xi. 485. Moping melancholy and moonstruck madness.
1749. Gray, Elegy. The moping owl doth to the moon complain.
d.1792. Horne, Works, v. 23. It directs him not to shut himself up in a cloister, alone, there to mope and moan away his life.
1888. Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms, li. You'd better think over your situation and don't mope.
Moped, adj. (colloquial).—See
quots. 1690 and 1785. Also
mopish, moping and mope-eyed.
1621. Fletcher, Pilgrim, iii. 3. What a mope-ey'd ass was I.
1640. Wit's Recr. [Hotten], 465. Mop-ey'd I am, as some have said, Because I've liv'd so long a Maid.
1647. Beaumont and Fletcher, Humourous Lieutenant, iv. 6. He is bewitched, or moped, or his brains melted.
d.1656. Bp. Hall, Spirituale Bedleem, 29. 'Here one mopishly stupid, and so fixed to his posture, as if he were a breathing statue.'
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Mop-eied, one that can't see well, by living too long a maid. Ibid. Mop'd, maz'd.
1717. Killinbeck, Sermons, 348. [They are] generally traduced as a sort of mopish and unsociable creatures.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Moped. Stupid, melancholy for want of society.
1880. Rhoda Broughton, Second Thoughts, viii. 'She sits drearily stitching, absently reading, mopingly thinking.'
Moppet. See Mop, subs. sense 4.
Moppy, adj. (common).—Drunk.
For synonyms see Drinks and
Screwed.
Mop-squeezer, subs. (common).—A
housemaid.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
Mopsy, subs. (old).—1. A familiar term for a woman: specifically a young girl; a mop (q.v. sense 4).
2. (common).—See quots.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Mopsey. A dowdy, or homely woman.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Mopsy. A short dowdy woman.
Mopus, subs. (old).—See quot.
1755.
d.1745. Swift, Miscellanies, 'The Grand Question Debated.' I'm grown a mere mopus; no company comes But a rabble of tenants.
1755. Johnson, Eng. Dict. (1814), s.v. Mopus . . . a cant word from 'mope'. A drone, a dreamer.
2. (common).—A small coin. [Said to be a corruption of the name of Sir Giles Mompesson, a monopolist notorious in the reign of James I].
