1892. Milliken, ’Arry Ballads, p. 42. Beats ’Andel’s molrowings a
buster.
Mome, subs. (old).—A blockhead. For synonyms see Buffle and
Cabbage-head.
c. 1550. Inglelend, Disobedient Child [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874),
ii. 315]. Me her husband, as a stark mome, With knocking and
mocking she will handle.
1557–8. Jacob & Esau [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), ii. 208]. Or
whether Jacob have any, that peakish mome.
1560. Nice Wanton [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), ii. 165]. I would sit
quaking like a mome for fear.
1562–3. Jack Juggler [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), ii. 138]. But if I
were a wise woman as I am a mome, I should make myself, as good
cheer at home.
b. 1583. Flodden Field [Child, Ballads, vii. 73]. Away with this
foolish mome.
1593. Shakspeare, Comedy of Errors, iii. 1. 32. Mome, malt-horse,
capon ... idiot, patch.
1606. Drayton, Skeltoniad [Chalmers, iv. 428]. Parnassus is not
clome By every such mome.
1661. Brome, Songs, p. 105. Words are but wind, but blows come
home, A stout-tongu’d lawyer’s but a mome.
Monarch, subs. (thieves’).—1. A name. Also moneker, moniker, monarcher,
and monick.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., i. 232. What is your monekeer?
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.
1879. Macmillan’s Mag., xl. 502. At the station they asked me what
my monarch was.
1891. Sporting Life, 1 April. Then came Perrin (otherwise ‘Curley’)
and ‘The Pocket Knifton’ (whose real moniker did not transpire).
1893. Emerson, Signor Lippo, 83. I go by the monarcher of North Eye
ever since. Ibid. 93. I can’t read or write my monarcher.
1895. Times, 11 Nov., p. 3, col. 5. ‘Silver Robbery’. The van is
all right. I have had the monnick taken off.