(cf. mud-crusher); une marionette (popular); un méfiant (military); un mousse-caillou (popular); les mutilés (= soldiers drafted to Africa for self-mutilation); officier de guérite (military); un Parisien (military: a crack soldier); un pied de banc (= a sergeant); un pousse-caillou (popular = gravel-grinder).
Italian synonyms. Burasco; formigotto; foco or fuoco.
Mudding-face, subs. (common).—A
fool; a muff or muffin-face
(q.v.).
Muddle, subs. (colloquial).—A state
of confusion.
1854. Dickens, Hard Times, passim.
1882. E. J. Worboise, Sissie, xxv. 'There is no management in our house; there is nothing but muddle.'
Verb. (common).—1. To stupefy with liquor. For synonyms see Drinks and Screwed.
1712. Arbuthnot, Hist. of John Bull [Ency. Dict.]. 'I was for five years often drunk, always muddled.'
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, III. ii. I must not muddle my brain with any more Pharaoh.
1872. Daily Telegraph, 5 Jan. 'The Clerical Scandal.' The vicar had a pocket handkerchief in his hand, and was wiping his face. He appeared to be muddled.
2. (colloquial).—To bungle.
3. (old Scots').—To copulate. For synonyms see Greens and Ride.
To muddle away, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To squander aimlessly; to waste one knows not how.
Muddle-head, subs. (common).—A
fool. Hence muddle-headed,
adj. (colloquial).—Doltish.
1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, xxx. What a precious muddle-headed chap you are.
1856. Reade, Never too Late to Mend, vi. They are muddle-heads.
Muddler, subs. (racing).—A clumsy
horse.
Mud-fog Association, subs. phr.
(obsolete).—See quots.
1838. Dickens in Bentley's Mag., IV. 209-227. Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything [Title].
1886. C. Dickens, Junior, in Household Words, 1 May, p. 13. Many critics have derided as a gross exaggeration a very early skit of my father's which satirised the proceedings of a certain Mudfog Association, but some recent meetings of the Social Science Association were quite as ridiculous.
Mudge, subs. (thieves').—See quot.
For synonyms see Golgotha.
1888. Sportsman, 22 Dec. The judge said that he had noticed that one of the witnesses had referred to the hat as a mudge, a word which he had not heard of before. One had always to learn, and for the future he should be able to add mudge to his vocabulary. The gangs of Liverpool are clever at 'bashing mudges,' 'slipping wipes,' and 'catching a Waterbury wind-for-ever.'
Mudger, subs. (old).—A milk-sop.
1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford, xxii. Ah, he was a fellow! none of your girl-faced mudgers, who make love to ladies, forsooth—a pretty woman need not look far for a kiss when he was in the room, I warrant, however coarse her duds might be.
Mud-hen, subs. (American Stock
Exchange).—A female gambler.
1876. San Francisco Post, Nov. The average mud-hen is middle-aged,
