1608. Middleton, Mad World, iii. 3. To wear half-moons made of
another’s hair.
1663. Killigrew, The Parson’s Wedding [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874),
xiv. 456]. Score a Sack of Score in the half-moon [Note, i.e., put
a quart of sack into your head at my expense].
Verb. (colloquial).—To wander or lounge as in a dream.
1856. Miss Yonge, Daisy Chain, xxi. ‘There! that bet is lost!’
exclaimed Larkins. ‘I laid Hill half-a-crown that you would not see
me when you were mooning over your verses!’
1863. C. Reade, Hard Cash, i. 39. The silence continued till it was
broken by—a fish out of water. An undergraduate in spectacles came
mooning along all out of his element.
1871. Standard, 14 April. ‘Italy.’ The press in vain raised its
voice against this tomfoolery, which gives us an excuse for
indulgence in our favourite occupation of mooning at street
corners, and of losing as much time as we can.
1871. London Figaro, 6 Mar. ‘French Refugees in London.’ Some of
the Frenchmen still look wretched. The other day I saw two of them
in blouses, mopingly mooning along Broad-street.
1873. Black, Princess of Thule, xxvii. Spend their time in mooning
up in that island of theirs.
1877. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, xvi. I might have mooned
away the afternoon in the Park and dined at the club.
1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, xiii. All this hoping and
moping and mooning has made your heart too battered a thing to
offer to the next peerless creature ye may happen to light on.
1888. Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms, xli. Well, I kept dark,
you be sure, and mooned about.
1889. Mrs. Oliphant, Poor Gentleman, xliv. He went mooning along
with his head down in dull and hopeless despondency.
To make believe the moon is made of green cheese, verb. phr.
(common).—To hoax.
1562–3. Jack Juggler [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), ii. 154]. To
believe and say the moon is made of a green cheese Or else have
great harm, and percase their life lese.
1640. Wit’s Recr. [Hotten], 114. The way to make a Welch-man thirst
for blisse, ... Is, to perswade him, that most certain ’tis, The
moon is made of nothing but green cheese.
1670. Ray, Proverbs [Bohn (1893), 171]. Tell me the moon’s made of
green cheese.
1846. T. Mildenhall, Sister and I, sc. ii. Aye, you’d better ask
why the moon is made of green cheese?
A blue moon, subs. phr. (common).—An indefinite time; never; Greek
kalends (q.v.); Tib’s eve (q.v.).
1528. Roy and Barlow, Rede me and Be nott Wroth, p. 114. Yf they
saye the mone is belewe, We must beleve that it is true, Admittynge
their interpretacion.
1876. B. H. Buxton, Jennie of the Prince’s, ii. 140. ‘Does he often
come of an evening?’ asks Jennie. ‘Oh, just once in a blue moon,
and then always with a friend.’
Minions of the moon. See Moonman.
Man in the moon. See Man.
To shoot (or bolt) the moon, verb. phr. (general).—To clear a house by
night to evade distraint or payment of rent; to do a moonlight
flitting. Hence moonshooters.
1825. Universal Songster, i. 70. She wished to gammon her landlord,
and likewise bolt the moon.
1842. Comic Almanack, 18 June. Now prepare for lunar shooting, and
hunt out Huntley’s vans. Convert your intimate friends after dark
into light porters of household furniture.
1885. Sporting Times, 23 May. ‘The Chorister’s Promise.’ The
landlady woke next day at noon, And was thinking of getting her
rent full soon, When she found that her lodger had shot the moon
And gone with the chips she owed.
1891. Morning Advertiser, 27 Mar. It was proved that the goods were
removed after eleven o’clock on the nights of the 2nd and 3rd of
March—a process described as shooting the moon.
1892. Globe, 2 April, p. 1, c. 5. The moon-shooters sometimes have
lodgers in their abodes. Not always do they think it worth while to
inform them of their intended journeying, and this may be awkward
for the lodger. Ibid. Who shall say that our popular phraseology is
not occasionally picturesque when we describe the flight of
impecunious tenants as shooting the moon, or ‘a midnight flit?’
To cry for the moon, verb. phr. (common).—To crave for the impossible.
Fr. Vouloir prendre la lune avec les dents.
To cast beyond the moon, verb. phr. (common).—To make extravagant
conjectures.
1606. Wily Beguiled [Orig. Eng. Drama, iii. 329]. Why, master
gripe, he casts beyond the moon.
To level at the moon, verb. phr. (common).—To be very ambitious.
To find an elephant in the moon, verb. phr. (old).—To find a mare’s
nest. [Sir Paul Neal, a seventeenth century virtuoso, gave out that he
had discovered an elephant in the moon. It turned out that a mouse had
crept into his telescope. See Butler, The Elephant in the Moon].
Moon-calf, subs. (old).—1. A monster.
1609. Shakspeare, Tempest, ii. 2. How, now, moon-calf? how does
thine ague.
1620. Ben Jonson, News from the New World, Print. O, ay,
moon-calves! what monster is that, I pray you? 2 Her. Monster! none
at all, a very familiar thing, like our fool here on earth.