1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.
1887. Lic. Vict. Gazette, 2 Dec., 359/2. I’ll get him to put the
mittens on vid your friend, and have three rounds.
1888. Greenwood, Odd People in Odd Places, p. 56. You see them two
there, sitting on t’other end of the table and eating fried fish
and bread. That’s their mittens they’ve got tied up in that
hankercher. They’re fighting coves.
Verb. (common).—To jilt. Also to give the mitten. In Devonshire to give
one turnips.
1838. Neal, Charcoal Sketches [Bartlett]. Young gentlemen that have
got the mitten, or young gentlemen who think they are going to get
the mitten, always sigh. It makes them feel bad.
1848. Lowell, Fable for Critics, p. 43. Here comes Dana,
abstractedly loitering along Involved in a paulo-post-future of
song Who’ll be going to write what’ll never be written Till the
Muse, ere he thinks of it, gives him the mitten.
1855. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), Human Nature, p. 90. There is a
young lady I have set my heart on; though whether she is a-goin’ to
give me hern, or give me the mitten, I ain’t quite satisfied.
1868. O. W. Holmes, Guardian Angel, ch. xxxiii. p. 264 (Rose Lib.).
Some said that Susan had given her young man the mitten, meaning
thereby that she had signified that his services as a suitor were
dispensed with.
1871. De Vere, Americanisms, s.v. More ungracefully still, an
unfortunate lover, who is simply ‘jilted’ at the North, is more
violently ‘kicked’ at the South—a phrase marking most
characteristically the contrast between the free and easy manners
of our day with those of past days, when the strongest term used
for the painful occasion was to give and to get the mitten. The
latter word ought, however, always to be mittens, as the phrase is
derived from the same use made of the French mitaines, which had to
be accepted by the unsuccessful lover instead of the hand, after
which he aspired.
1873. Carleton, Farm Ballads, 19. Once, when I was young as you,
and not so smart, perhaps, For me she mittened a lawyer, and
several other chaps.
1884. Punch, 1 March, p. 108, col. 2. Lifeboat hands who are found
shrinking, Or with fear of danger smitten, Get, not medals, but the
mitten.
1887. Lippincott’s Magazine, Aug., p. 241. Ah, I see. Popped the
question, and got the mitten. Oh, well you mustn’t let that
discourage you.
1888. Notes & Queries, 7 S. vi. 126. To get the mitten.... Without
doubt the Latin mitto, to send (about your business), to dismiss,
is the fons et origo of the word.
1890. E. Bellamy, Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process, p. 42. ‘After all,’ she
said, suddenly, ‘that would be taking a good deal of trouble to get
a mitten. If you are so anxious for it, I will give it to you now;’
and she held out the glove to him with an inscrutable face.
To handle without mittens, verb. phr. (common).—See quot.
1755. Johnson, Eng. Dict., s.v. Mittens. To handle without mittens.
To handle roughly. A low phrase.
Easy as mittens, phr. (common).—Free.
1892. Milliken, ’Arry Ballads, p. 22. The ladies was easy as
mittens.
Mitten-mill, subs. (American).—A glove-fight.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.
Mivvy, subs. (common).—1. A woman: in contempt. Hence (2) a
lodging-house landlady; a cat (q.v.).
1887. Punch, 10 Sept., p. 111. Talk about stodge! Jest you arsk the
old mivvy as caters for me at the crib where I lodge.
1892. Milliken, ’Arry Ballads, p. 13. Bare-armed old mivvies you
meet spread out pink in a theatre stall.