Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 4.pdf/390

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1860. Binney, Church Life in Australia, App. No. viii. 59. The whole thing is a mull.

1874. Jos. Hatton, Clytie, 11. ch. xii. And look what a mull you made of the old Earl business! Why, the examination upon that point damns your whole case.

3. (colloquial).—A simpleton. Generally old mull or regular mull.

Verb, (colloquial).—1. To spoil to muddle; to muff (q.v.).

2. (American thieves').—See quot.

1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Mull. To spend money.


Muller. To muller a hat, verb. phr. (obsolete).—To cut down a chimney-pot hat into the low-crowned Muller. [From Müller, who murdered Mr. Briggs on the Brighton Railway, and tried to disguise himself by this means].

1864. Builder, November. One murderer gave us the word 'burke;' a second appears likely to add to the vocabulary of trade. In a small shop not far from Sloane-square, Chelsea, may be seen the following tasteful announcement: Hats muller'd here!


Mulligrubs (or Mollygrubs), subs. (colloquial).—1. Colic; the collywobbles (q.v.).

1619. Beaumont and Fletcher, Monsieur Thomas, ii. 2. 'Whose dog lies sick o' th' mulligrubs?'

1634. S. Rowley, Noble Souldier, iv. 2. Cor. The Divell lyes sicke of the mulligrubs.

1719. Durfey, Pills to Purge, v. 311. The pox, the mulligrubs.

1738. Swift, Polite Convers., Dial. 1. What! you are sick of the mulligrubs with eating chopt hay?

1837-40. Haliburton, The Clockmaker, p. 388 (ed. 1862). It draws the cold out, and keeps it from flyin' to the stomack, and saves you a fit of the mulligrubs p'raps.

1887. Henley, Villon's Good-Night. You coppers, narks, and dubs . . . Who gave me mumps and mulligrubs.

2. (colloquial).—Mubble-fubbles (q.v.). See quot. 1748.

1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, in Works, v. 280. Wherwith Peters successour was so in his mulliegrums that he had thought to have buffeted him, and cursed him with bell book and candle.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Mulligrubs (S.) a pretended or counterfeit sullenness, a resolute, and fixed, and artificial displeasure, in order to gain some point desired.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1811. A. Scott, Poems, p. 19. Waes me, the mulligrumphs she's ta'en An' toss'd him wi' a vengeful wap Frae out her silk-saft downy lap.

1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, xxi. Repeating as the rich cordial trickled forth in a smooth oily stream—'Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed mulligrubs out of a moody brain

1823. Bee, Dict. Turf, s.v.

1895. H.B. Marriott-Watson, in New Review, July, p. 6. But what's gone is gone, and to curl up with the mullygrubs because the milk is a trifle sour, is neither to your credit nor to mine. And that's plain, I says.


Mullingar heifer, subs. phr. (Irish).—-A girl with thick ankles.


Multicattivo, phr. (theatrical).—Very bad. [Italian, MOLTO CATTIVO].

1887. Sat. Review, 14 May, p. 700. To theatrical slang belong a good many terms that are now either introduced into familiar and slangy talk or are familiar; we know how to make the ghost walk when biz is rumbo, and what it is that makes the company multicattivo.


Multy, adj. (common).—An expletive. Cf. Monday, etc.

1887. Henley, Villon's Straight Tip. How do you melt the multy swag? Booze and the blowens cop the lot.