4. (military).—A shot striking a target, divided into four sections, in
the outermost but one. [It is signalled with a black and white disk].
Cf. Bull’s-eye.
1884. Times, 23 July. Running through the scoring gamut with an
outer, a magpie, and a miss.
Magpie’s-nest, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms see
Monosyllable.
c. 1720. Ballad [Brit. Mus. Cat. 11621, i. 1. 75]. I heard the
merry wag protest, The muff between her haunches, Resembled most a
magpie’s nest, Between two lofty branches.
d. 1796. Old Ballad, ‘Ken ye Na Our Lass, Bess?’ [quoted by Burns
in Merry Muses], Between her lily-white thies She’s biggit a
magpie’s-nest.
Magsman, subs. (thieves’).—A street swindler, a confidence-trick man.
[From mag = to talk + man]. For synonyms see Thieves. Fr. un chevalier
de la retourne.
1838. The Town, ‘The Swell Mob,’ 27 Jan. A magsman must, of
necessity be a great actor, and a most studious observer of human
nature.... Without [these attributes] a man might as well attempt
to fly as to go out for a ‘mag-stake.’
1856. H. Mayhew, Gt. World of London, p. 46. The dependents of
cheats; as ‘jollies’ and magsmen, or the confederates of other
cheats.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Magsmen. Fellows who are too
cowardly to steal, but prefer to cheat confiding people by acting
on their cupidity.
1864. Leeds Mercury, 7 June. The case we now report is one in which
an Englishman—a Yorkshireman too—was swindled by two magsmen.
1887. W. E. Henley, Villon’s Good Night. You magsmen bold that work
the cram.
1888. G. R. Sims, in Cassell’s Sat. Journal, 31 March, p. 7. The
magsman earns his living by what is called the confidence trick.
Mahogany, subs. (common).—1. A dining-table. Also mahogany-tree.
1840–1. Dickens, Master Humphrey’s Clock. I had hoped to have seen
you three gentlemen with your legs under the mahogany in my humble
parlor in the Marks.
1847. Thackeray [in Punch, vol. xii, p. 13]. The Mahogany Tree
[Title].
1847. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Vol. ii. ch. vii. ‘I ... can show a
handsomer service of silver, and can lay a better dinner on my
mahogany, than ever they see on theirs.’
1856. Strang, Glasgow & its Clubs, 102. With his legs below the
tavern mahogany, etc.
1889. Licensed Victuallers’ Gaz., 18 Jan. The men who had so
constantly had their legs under his mahogany.
1892. Henley and Stevenson, Deacon Brodie, Tableau III. Sc. I. p.
30. Why man, if under heaven there were but one poor lock unpicked,
and that the lock of one whose claret you’ve drunk, and who has
babbled of woman across your own mahogany—that lock, sir, were
entirely sacred.