Muck, subs. (old: now colloquial).—1. A dripping, or oozing, mass of filth. Hence, muck-cheap = very cheap; muck-heap, or muck-scutcheon = a foul sloven: cf. Midden; muck-grubber = a miser; muck-hill = a dunghill; muck-spout = a foul-mouthed talker; muck-suckle = a filthy woman; mucky-white = sallow in complexion; muck of sweat = a violent perspiration, etc.
1766. Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield, ix. She was all of a muck of sweat.
2. (common).—Anything vile.
1884. Henley and Stevenson, Deacon Brodie, I. iii. 1. Muck: that's my opinion of him.
1888. Sportsman, 28 Nov. 'Yuss,' quoth somebody else, 'and a precious little luck he'll get a drinking sech like muck.'
1892. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, p. 28. Up to now it's bin muck and no error, fit only for fishes.
3. (old).—Money. For synonyms see Actual and Gilt.
1393. Gower, Confessio Amantis, v. 'For to pinche, and for to spare, Of worlds mucke to gette encres.'
1587. Turberville, Tragicall Tales [Nares]. Not one in all Ravenna might compare With him for wealth, or match him for his muck.
1592. Nashe, Summer's Last Will [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), viii. 29]. St. Francis a holy saint and never had any money. It is madness to doat upon muck.
1603. Davies of Hereford, Microcosmos [Grosart (1878), i. c], 70. Our mucke and Earthly Mammon's continent.
1611. Davies, Scourge of Folly [Nares]. He married her for mucke, she him for lust; The motives fowle, then fowlly live they must.
1624. Massinger, Bondman, i. 3. Do you prize your muck Above your liberties.
1655. Massinger, Guardian, v. 4. Deliver such coin as you are furnish'd with. . . . Dur. When we have thrown down our muck, what follows? Sev. Liberty, with a safe convoy, To any place you choose.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed). Muck (S.) . . . also a cant name or money hoarded up.
1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict., s.v. Muck . . . pelf, which a miser scrades.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.
4. (common).—A heavy fall. Also Mucker.
5. (common).—A coarse brute.
Verb. (common).—1. To spend; and (2) to ruin.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., i. 20. He'd muck a thousand!
1892. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, p. 75. Wot mucks me, old man. Ibid. p. 70. I'm mucked, that's a moral.
2. (racing).—See quot.
1865. Sporting Gazette, 1 April. If this letter had not already reached a considerable length, I would discourse upon the probability that to run a muck, and to go a mucker, which Mr. Hotten treats as synonymous, are in reality unconnected. The meaning and derivation of to run a muck are no doubt correctly given; but to go a mucker as men frequently do on the Turf, seems to be connected with muck, to clean out, and perhaps with muckinger, a pocket handkerchief.
To go (or run) a muck (or a mucker), verb. phr. (common).—To go headlong; also to be recklessly extravagant; to run amok (q.v.). [Stanford Dict. The homicidal frenzy (of a Malay), used originally in Port. forms amouca, amuco; hence, in a homicidal frenzy, furiously, viciously; metaphorically, headlong. Rare as adv. except with 'run.' Sometimes used as if it were the indef. art. 'a' with subs. 'muck'].
