1785. Grose, Vulgar Tongue, s.v. Mohair, a man in the civil line, a
townsman, or tradesman, a military term, from the mohair buttons
worn by persons of those descriptions, or any others not in the
army; the buttons of military men being always of metal; this is
generally used as a term of contempt.
Mohawk (or Mohock), subs. (old).—A ruffian who infested the streets of
London at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At the Restoration,
the street bullies were called Muns and Tityre-Tus; then Hectors and
Scourers; then, Nickers and Hawcubites; and lastly, Mohocks or Mohawks.
Also as verb.
1711. Swift, Journal to Stella, 8 March. Did I tell you of a race
of rakes, called the mohawks that play the devil about this town
every night?
1712. Steele, Spectator, No. 324. The mohock-club, a name borrowed,
it seems, from a sort of cannibals in India, who subsist by
plundering and devouring all the nations about them.
1712. Gay, Trivia, iii. 326. Who has not trembled at the mohock’s
name?
1717. Prior, Alma, iii. Give him port and potent sack; From a
milksop he starts up mohack.
1719. T. Durfey, Pills to Purge, vi. 336. There’s a new set of
Rakes, Entitled mohacks, Who infest Her Majesties subjects.
1755. Gentlemen’s Mag., xxv. 65. The mohacks and Hell-Fire-Club,
the heroes of the last generation.
1825. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, i. ch. viii. Some loitering rascal who
has been out a mohawking to-day.
1839. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [Dick’s ed.], p. 58. He’s the leader
of the mohocks.
1861. Sala, Twice Round the Clock, 4 a.m. Par. 9. A Billingsgate
fish-fag, was more than a match for a mohock.
1882. Punch, lxxxii. 83. ‘The Mohock Revival.’ That ancient form of
ruffianism known as mohockism.
1889. Clarkson and Richardson, Police, 7. These were the Muns ...
the Hectors ... and the mohocks.
Mohican, subs. (obsolete).—See quot.
1848. Tait’s Mag., 2 S. xv. 309. A mohican, in Cadonian
phraseology, is a tremendously heavy man, who rides five or six
miles [in an omnibus] for sixpence.
Moiety, subs. (old).—1. See quots.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1811. Lex. Bal., s.v.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Moiety, fifty.