1887. Christian Union, 11 Aug. One of those cheap boarding-houses
... where humanity is resolved into two classes only ... roomers
and mealers.
Meal-mouth, subs. (old).—See quot.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Meal-mouth, a sly sheepish Dun,
or Solicitor for Money. Cf. Mealy-mouthed.
Meal-tub (or -sack), subs. (clerical).—The stock of sermons. ‘I’ve
nothing in my meal-tub’ = I’ve no sermon ready.
Mealy- (or Meal-) mouthed, (or mealy), adj. (old: now
recognised).—Fluent; plausible; persuasive. See also quot. 1748. Cf.
Meal-mouth.
1587. Harmar, Beza’s Sermons, 315. Ye whited walls and painted
sepulchres, ye meal-mouthed counterfeits, ye devourers of widows.
1598. Marston, Sat., ii. Who would imagine yonder ... meale-mouthed
precisian ... is a vile, sober, damn’d politician.
1600. Dekker, Shom. Holiday [Grosart (1873), i. 13]. This wench
with the mealy mouth that wil neuer tire, is my wife I can tel you.
1606. John Day, Ile of Guls, iv. 4. p. 93. Wife. Tho I may not
scold I may tel em roundly out I hope ... and Ile not be mealely
mouthd, I warrant em.
1631. Shirley, Love Tricks, i. A very crazy, old, meal-mouth’d
gentleman; you are younger at least by thirty years.
1639. Fletcher, Bloody Brother, iii. 2. A place too good for thee,
thou meal-mouth’d rascal!
1748. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.). Mealy-mouthed, one that is
faint-hearted, bashful, or afraid to speak his mind freely.
1759. Townley, High Life below Stairs, ii. Out, you mealy-mouthed
cur!
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ix. ‘We might get money—ay,
plenty of it—if you were only like the rest: you’re too
mealy-mouthed, Mrs. Blacke, that’s where it is.’
1854. Dickens, Hard Times, ... I didn’t mince the matter with him.
I’m never mealy with ’em.
1886. Edinburgh Review, clxiii. 425. Angry men hotly in earnest are
not usually mealy-mouthed.
Mean, adj. (colloquial).—1. Disobliging; petty; stingy. To feel mean =
to feel guilty.
2. (old: now American).—A general epithet of disparagement: mean night
= a bad night; mean horse = a sorry screw; mean crowd = a man of no
account; mean bit = a worn-out whore.
1848. Georgia Scenes, 27. He’ll cut the same capers there as here.
He’s a monstrous mean horse.
1887. Francis, Saddle & Mocassin, p. 146. There ain’t a drop of
mean blood in him.
1888. Century Mag., Oct. There can be no greater provocation than
is given by a mean horse, or a refractory steer.
Mean enough to steal acorns from a blind hog, phr. (American).—As mean
as may be.
Mean white, subs. phr. (American negro).—See quots.; poor white trash
(q.v.).
1837. H. Martineau, Soc. in America, ii. 311. There are a few,
called by the slaves mean whites, signifying whites who work with
the hands.
1873. Justin McCarthy, Fair Saxon, xix. That despised and degraded
class, the mean whites—the creatures who had neither the social
position and property that seemed essential to freedom in the
South, nor the protected comfort of slavery.
Measly, adj. (vulgar).—Contemptible. [Cf. var. dial. measled =
diseased].
1864. M. E. Braddon, Henry Dunbar, xxviii. ‘And to think that the
government of this country should have the audacity to offer a
measly hundred pounds or so for the discovery of a great crime!’
1884. Henley & Stevenson, Admiral Guinea (‘Three Plays’, p. 203).
Now in my blind old age I’m to be sent packing from a measly public
’ouse.
Measure, subs. (old).—See quot.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Measure, the Distance of
Duellers. To break measure, to be out of the Adversaries reach.
To measure out, verb. phr. (common).—To knock down flat; to kill.
1891. Morning Advertiser, 3 April. The witness went to Martin’s
assistance, and became engaged in a tussle with the prisoner
Tounsel, who took an empty lemonade bottle from his pocket and
said, ‘Look out, or I’ll measure you out.’
To take (or get) one’s measure, verb. phr. (old).—1. To marry; and (2)
to copulate.
1684. Lacy, Sir Hercules Buffoon, v. 3. Gin I’d let him alane, he
had taken measure o’ th’ inside of me as well as o’ th’ out.
1771. Foote, Maid of Bath, i. She is a tight bit of stuff, and I am
confident will turn out well in the wearing. I once had some
thoughts myself of taking measure of Miss.